Light of Hope
by Angel of Light 867
Summary: After the destruction of Vale and Beacon, Team JRRN must find out what happened in Mistral, but they only find clues of an upcoming war. They must side with their friends, new and old, to make sure another incident wont occur and claim another kingdom.
1. Departure

**Light of Hope Chapter 1**

 **A/N:** _Hey what is going on guys, and welcome to my new story. I had this idea not that long ago, as it came to me as I was playing Warframe with my friends, playing the second dream quest._

* * *

Ruby smiled as she pulled the door behind her, closing it. She was determined to find out what caused this disaster and why did they choose during the tournament.

"Ready to go?" A voice said behind her.

She looked back to see a blonde teen wearing a dark hoodie under a small chest plate and blue jeans with shoes, as he was the first to befriend the young huntress, as she didn't know anyone at Beacon, "Hey Jaune."

"Haven's a long way to go."

Jaune simply nodded, "I know, its the only lead we have."

Ruby wanted to make sure he was ready for this task, "You sure you still want to come along."

Ren interrupted as he stated, "The journey will be peerless and whether we will find answers or not is entirely uncertain."

Nora agreed with the green ninja as she was wielding her hammer/grenade launcher, "But we wouldn't be here if we weren't up for it."

The young huntress felt confident and smiled, "Then let's get started."

She walked past the remaining members of Team JNPR and towards the large wooded area. Jaune and the rest followed the young leader as they wanted to know why they had this incident happen.

* * *

A person walked up to the ledge as he was watching over the young group traveling towards the kingdom of Mistral, as they were following a lead that could possibly be there.

Qrow was wielding his sword that could transform into a scythe and a cane, as it belonged to the headmaster of Beacon, Ozpin. Knowing that he couldn't stop them from going, he decided to tail behind them.

He jumped off of the ledge and a second later, crow came flying towards the group.

* * *

Taiyang came into Ruby's room, bringing in a large basket with unknowing items.

"Hey Ruby-" He stopped as he didn't see her, instead he seen a piece of paper on her bed.

He dropped the basket as he ran out of the room, "Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no," he ran past Yang's door as she was watching a black bird on the branch.

He opened the door to see no one around, fearing the worst, "RUBY!"

Yang snapped out of her thoughts as she got out of bed and ran towards her father, "Dad, what's wrong?"

Tai dropped to his knees as he slammed his fist into the ground, "Your sister, …she's gone."

Yang was shocked that her sister was gone, "What why?"

Tai grunted as he knew why, "They must be after the ones who caused this."

Yang clenched her fist and walked back, "I'll go find her-"

"Wait"

She stopped and spun around, "Why wait, she could get herself hurt. What they did to this kingdom, they turned our soldiers onto each other, released that big Grimm onto the school…" she paused as she thought about the others, "Our friends, they were hurt and some lost their lives because of this, Penny… and Pyrrha."

"I know, but you should stay here if she comes back" Tai said as he ran out and followed the trail.

Yang looked down as she knew Ruby wouldn't come back anytime soon.

Thinking of the possibilities, she walked into a hallway and went into her sister's room.

As she looked around, she already seen the note on the bed, using her good hand, she reached for the note.

Turning it around, she seen what her sister had said, 'I will be going to Mistral to find whoever caused this. Don't try to stop me.'

Grunting, she crumpled the paper and slammed her fist into the wall, "Why did you do this Ruby…"

* * *

Ruby looked back as she was talking to Summer's grave stone, thinking she heard something.

"Something wrong?" Ren asked as he was examining the area.

Ruby shook her head, "No, must've imagined it."

The young huntress looked back to the grave as she smiled, "Well I must be on my way, Mistral's long ways away."

"RUBY" A voice called out from behind them.

Right away, team Journey looked back to see Taiyang.

"Dad?" Ruby said as she knew something's wrong.

Taiyang was panting as he was extremely worried, "What are you guys doing… getting yourselves hurt?"

Jaune shook his head, "No sir, we want to know why that woman attacked Beacon."

"That's not why you disobeyed me, by leaving your homes and going into another kingdom, causing all sorts of trouble?" Tai said as he wanted to find a way to convince them.

"But-" Ruby said as someone was behind Tai.

"Now wait just a moment" A voice said from the huntsman.

Tai looked back to see another huntsman behind him, "What do you want Qrow?"

Qrow looked at him as he spun the cane around his hand, "They're with me, we're going to find out who actually caused this," he came closer to Tai as he whispered, "we suspect 'she' might something to do with this."

Tai grunted as he knew he couldn't win this fight, "Fine, just promise me that you guys come home safe, ok?"

Qrow waved him off, "Yeah, yeah, whatever."

Ruby and the other all nodded, "We understand sir."

Tai walked up to ruby as he placed his hand on her shoulder and quickly hugged her, "Good luck Ruby."

"I love you to dad" Ruby said as she hugged back and quickly let go. She ran towards her uncle as the rest of team JNPR were behind.

Tai watched as he seen Qrow walking in front as Ruby and her friends were going on real mission like actual Huntsmen and huntresses.

With tears forming, he quickly brushed them away, watching his youngest daughter acting like an adult already.

Qrow pulled out his Scroll, as he wanted to message someone, typing 'We're moving out, keep an eye on Yang'.

Ruby grabbed onto his arm, getting his attention, "Hey uncle, who you messaging?"

Qrow smiled as he wanted to keep it secret, "An old comrade."

* * *

-Thud-

A large Beowulf landed onto the snowy ground, already starting to evaporate. A foot stomped onto the Grimm, crushing the skull.

"Heh" The female said as she put her katana back into the sheath as it moved to another blade. She pulled the blade out as it went from a blue blade and into a red blade, as she was surrounded with a large pack of Beowolves.

-Ring-Ring-

She pulled out her Scroll and found out that it was her brother who sent out the message, "Really Qrow?"

"AROOOOOOOO" One large Beowulf howled as it and the others were charging.

Beneath her mask, she smiled as the wolves were closing in on her, so she kept her blade up as she got into a battle stance and slashed at the group.

* * *

Yang looked out of the kitchen window as she heard a wolf howl.

"Must be another person hunting the wolves" She said as she pulled a drawer to pull out an item.

Seeing the item, she wondered if she should do it. As she stared at the scissors, she knew that there's no going back if she does.

Chuckling, she went with the plan.

She raised the scissors towards her hair as she spread the blades apart…

-snip-snip-

Pieces of her long golden hair were being cut off. Normally when enemies even take a strand off of her, she would relentless attack them, killing the Grimm responsible or knock out the person, like Junior.

She was cutting major portions off as she heard the door open and close behind her, she heard the footsteps come closer as she was done cutting most of the long hair out.

"Yang? What are you doing?" Tai said as he never expected this.

Yang closed her eyes as she said, "Can you help me with the rest?"

Tai was about to say something but he didn't want to question it as he grabbed the scissors, "Sure."

Continuing where she left off, he cut most of the hair behind her head short and kept her bangs long on her right side, as the short portions he had planned to stand up.

"…And done" Tai said as he pulled out mirror, "How do you like it."

Yang examined the changes, as most of her hair were short.

She faintly smiled as she hugged her father "I like it."

* * *

And this is the Prologue, I didn't want this to be too long, so I might make the chapters up to 2k words and updated weekly.


	2. Welcome to Mistral

**Light of Hope Chapter 2**

 _ **A/N:** Yo what is going on people… As you can tell from it, that this follows the story with Ruby after Season 3. I couldn't wait until the new season so I'm doing this until the new season arrives, probably in September this year._

It may feel rushed, as I had a mental block and didn't write this until Tuesday.

 _Anyway, enough of me talking, enjoy the chapter!_

* * *

"Hey check it out" Nora said as she leaned onto the railings of ship.

"We're here" Ren said as he crossed his arms and closed his eyes.

They watched as the airship was nearing towards the large city of Mistral, much like Vale it was mainly like an average city but the outskirts of the city was covered in murky like waters, like a swamp.

"Now that we're here, we need to find out where Cinder's located so we can go after her" Ruby said with eager confidence.

Qrow smiled as she had the determination like her mother.

He remembered seeing Ruby starting to walk and he wanted to keep her safe, like a good uncle.

Jaune looked over to see some familiar faces, "Hey guys, check who it is."

Ruby, Ren and Nora checked where Jaune had pointed over to the pier and to their amazement, they saw Sun and the rest of his team there, Scarlett, Sage and Neptune.

The ship stops as it reached the pier, opening its doors for its passengers to leave the ship.

Ruby watched as the other 3 walked out and greeted their friends, as they fought alongside each other during the battle of Vale a few weeks ago.

She felt a hand pat her on the head, she looked to see Qrow.

"Take care Ruby, I'll be going around the kingdom, trying to find out the same problem like you're doing." He said as he walked past her, with his hands in his pockets, disappearing into the large crowd.

The young huntress waved as she seen him disappear, "Bye uncle Qrow."

She looked and walked back to her friends, as she wanted to ask them a few things after they got left Beacon.

"Hey Sun, did anything change here after the Grimm incident?" Ruby asked the Faunus.

Sun and the others looked at each other for a second and nodded, "Yeah, there's something happening here, what part do you want?"

Jaune frowned as he didn't like it, "We want all of it, anything would help us find Cinder."

"That's going to be the problem"

"What's the problem?" Ren asked as he was the first to question it.

"So many things in this kingdom" Neptune said as he wanted to sum it up, "Atlas' soldiers are always on high alert now and many of the local huntsmen are acting strangely, like they're always looking for the enemy within our own walls. Haven Academy is not out of this either, many of our top students went missing as we came back after the festival, there's a rumor that they were with Cinder this entire time."

"How many went missing?" Jaune asked as he wanted to make sure that if they fight them, he didn't want to fight a lot of them.

"About 30 teams, but we're not sure that they all made an alliance yet."

"What do you mean Atlas' soldiers acting strange?" Ren asked as he was suspicious with what they know.

"They're always caring their weapons at all times and their knights and paladins are always on, searching for something."

"Do you know which teams to watch out for, the ones who already switch with Cinder?"

There's 2 teams that actually made it public, they're names PLGE(Plague) and SWAG. They're doing the work for her and the others without causing more work for them. If there're people who are against Cinder's rule, they would be placed with silencing them.

"Oh…" Nora simply said as she didn't have much to say, but she had an idea, "I know, what about we make some sort of rebellion here, we could liberate this city and rid them of this tyrant."

"I like the idea, but that's not possible" Scarlet said as he shrugged, "there's already a group called the Virtues, as they are being led by 2 teams and their families as they want to liberate this place. We support them and some smaller factions in the school support them as well, but majority of the public don't like what they're doing."

"What, why? Don't they know the problems of a Maiden's powers being used for the wrong reasons?" Ruby was mad that the public don't like the Virtues.

"It seems like they're too much like the White Fang?" Jaune said as Sun snapped his fingers.

"Bingo, that's how they came to life, as they wanted to be equal, but all it has to take is an incident and a new leader with different goals. They believe that this wasn't all the Virtues have in mind, as they want to change the laws here."

"So you know where they are right now?" Ren asked as Sun and the rest knew what happened.

"Yeah, the Virtues know what happened, I think both teams CPAS(compassion) and HELP were out helping the citizens." Sun said as he walked away with the rest of his team following him, he waved team JRRN over to follow.

"Oh right" Ruby said as she ran over to be next to Sun.

"How did the Virtues come into play, as you're implying that they just started?"

Sun thought about it as he tried to remember everything, "They didn't start until a few weeks ago when everything was changing. The teams were all the same year as us, so they're inexperience with real fieldwork but their parents were instructors in different academies. We talked to them, and they knew something was wrong for a while, Cinder, Mercury and Emerald were never students in Haven Academy, they dressed like us but they were in with a bigger plan."

"A bigger plan?" Jaune said as he was interpreting what he was saying.

"We don't know all of the details yet, but this was simply a testing phase, to release the dragon, and to steal the maiden's power from Vale." Mercury said as he remembered what the leader said to them after they got back.

"What about the other Maidens? Are they in danger?" Jaune asked as he was the only one who saw the fall maiden killed by her.

"As of right now, no one knows if they've already been caught or hidden away. The news of that kind of power doesn't go around, we didn't know that legend was real, but Cinder killed some huntsmen who tried to oppose her, by showing how powerful she was." Scarlet said as recalled being in the crowd seeing a Maiden's power being used for the first time, as it horrified the crowd.

Hearing what happened, the group from vale was shocked to hear of this, as there wasn't anything like this being reported, Ruby was mad, as she didn't like having her friends being hurt and worst her enemies eliminated huntsmen and taken over a kingdom without much of a fight, "Why didn't the others like the soldiers go against her."

Sun looked away as he didn't like it either, "It was General Ironwood's idea, as Atlas wanted to capture her first, as they're now enemies of the kingdoms."

"Well, why don't we-" Ruby said as Sun stopped as he heard something, "what's wrong?"

"That's team SWAG," Sun pointed over to the top of the building.

Ruby looked closely and seen 4 people all dressed in Haven uniforms, there's one female and 3 males behind her as the stared at Teams SSSN and JRRN. They motioned to follow them as they heard metal clashing against each other, like a battle's going on in the distance.

"This isn't good" Sage said as they ran towards them.

"Let's move" Ren said as they followed the teams.

"On it Ren!" Nora shouted as she jumped up after Ren.

They jumped up onto the top of the buildings and continued following them, SWAG was staying ahead but keeping distance between themselves and their pursers.

They ran for a few blocks until they took a sharp left and jumped off.

Sun looked over to see something he didn't like, "Oh no."

Ruby looked to where Sun looked, seeing another team in front of group of 8 people, all wearing the same uniforms, half were barely standing while the others were on the ground.

"Who are they?" Jaune asked as he doesn't know who's side they're on.

"We have to help them" Sun said as he pulled out his nun-chucks/shotguns. The rest of the team also pulled out their weapons to help.

Ruby jumped off as well, pulling out her Crescent Rose and landed in front of her friends, "Who are you guys and why are you attacking other students."

"Attacking?" One male said as he shrugged, wielding a boomerang with blades extending out of it.

"Please… they were trying to interfere our work" A green haired female said as she extended her chains out of her gauntlets and spun around herself.

"Don't interfere with our business" A male with brown hair put one sword away as he gripped one with both hands.

"Get lost" The female leader said as she slammed her fist with the shield equipped and the ground was being cut by the chainsaw edges.

Ruby checked their weapons, though she liked the weapons, she snapped back into reality and prepared for battle.

Sun looked back at the down students, "Can you get up?"

A male dog Faunus got up and grabbed his dual hatchets, "I'm fine."

A female deer Faunus got up and grabbed her weapons, a pike sniper, "Sophia, go and heal the others."

The girl got up with her lantern-mace as she ran towards her teammates, "I'm on it."

Ruby watched as she seen team PLGE stood in place, but she wondered what happened, though she knew that they have to win this fight.

The female smiled as she ran towards the group while she was dragging the weapon onto the ground, cutting it as she was running towards Sage, he seen this and held his sword in a defensive motion and withstood the initial blow.

Ruby looked back to see one of the opponents already in front of her, with his bladed-nunchaku drawn and in mid-attack, she tried to back up but someone grabbed her shoulder and blocked the blades.

"You're not getting Ruby" Sun said as he already pulled out his staff, blocking bother bladed nunchakus.

Scarlet pointed his cutlass at the male with brown hair, as he wanted to challenge him.

"Sure" he simply said as his hands turned red with heat generation, causing the sharp edges of the sword to turn red with heat. He prepped and charged at the red-head with his attack.

Neptune looked to see the other female, "Ladies first."

The green haired female looked shocked but liked the compliment, "Why thank you, but I won't make it easy for you."

"No problem" he spun his naginata to turn it into a gun and fired it at her.

She jumped to the left, dodging most of the blasts, but she used her gauntlets to deflect the ones that got too close.

"Ruby, you and the others help the ones who're hurt, we got this." Sun said as he was battling against his opponent.

"Ok," She looked up to see the other team, just sitting there, waiting for something, 'what do they have planned?'

* * *

One of the members who was sitting there, watching the battle between Team SSSN and PLGE, noticed something about the girl in the red hood, "Hey guys check her out."

"What about her?" A male said as he used his robotic arm to make a cannon out of it, "Should I fire it right now?"

Another male pulled the arm down, "No, dumb-butt, she fits the description our lady Cinder told us about, the one with silver eyes…"

"Should we stop our mission?" The last member asked as he held his cane and top-hat.

The female contemplated for a bit until she had to make the choice, "We have to pull out for now, stop the match," She said as she pulled out 2 curved bladed guns and formed them together into a large metal hula-hoop with blades outside of it.

Ruby was helping one of the injured as she heard the fighting stop, as the people who were standing on top of the building jumped down and interfered with the fight.

"What gives?" One complained as they loved to fight.

The leader of Swag spun her weapon around her arm, "We're done with our mission, we can't do anymore without getting unwanted attention from Atlas again."

Though PLGE was mad, they quickly agreed and got out of the area.

The leader of SWAG looked back as she was the last to leave, she pointed towards the girl helping her teammates and left, "Sophia, why are you helping them?"

* * *

Sun and his team were happy that they were gone, as they were a challenge. He looked back to see the rest of teams CPAS and HELP back to their feet, barely. The injuries they sustained were bad, but not life threatening.

The dog Faunus walked up to Sun and his team and bowed down in front of them, "I must thank you, for our teams couldn't defeat our adversaries."

"No need to thank us, we're just doing our job of being Huntsmen" Sun said as Ruby smiled to see things didn't go wrong fast.

The girl who was helping her team, still holding her mace, looked at Ruby but also noticed the eyes, "Silver eyes?"

"Ok how many people around her are going to say things about my eyes?" Ruby said out to everyone who could hear, as it was getting annoying.

"I'm sorry, but my name is Sophia Silver Shadowend, the daughter of the Leader of the Virtues."

"Hello" Ruby said as she interrupted.

"Oh you must be the one who stopped the dragon at Vale?" Sophia said as she shook her hand.

"Don't worry about it Ruby, we told them what happened?" Sun said as he was there, defending the kingdom.

"We'll take you to our place, and tell you everything that happened here before you arrived." Sophia said as she and the 2 teams were able to stand and walked back home.

Ruby and her friends followed them as they knew that these 2 teams have something important that will help them with battling against Cinder and her forces.

She thought about until she looked up to the CCT, and wondered what her teammates were doing, Yang must still be at home, distraught with losing her arm. Blake, she must be somewhere no one knows and Weiss, she must be in Atlas, probably liking her kingdom much better than here.

The young huntress held her head in shame, as she hated what happened so far, losing friends and kingdoms fearing each other.

She felt a hand place onto her shoulder, she looked up to see Jaune, but his expression was baffling the young one, as he was smiling.

She smiled back as she looked around, seeing her friends, coming back together and going out of their way to battle against the ones who did them harm.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Well thanks for reading it guys, and apologies with introducing 16 new characters, I didn't want to make it confusing, so I left a lot of them with vague descriptions. They will be re-introduced in a later chapter. And for the pairings, I don't know if I should. Seeing the different pairings like Jaune/Ruby, Arkos, Bumblebee, Monochrome, Weiss/Neptune, and so many others. I don't want to be annoying like 'This pairing for the win!' Maybe have slight clues to a pairing, I liked Arkos but that went down after the season finale_ :'(

 _Please leave a comment if you enjoyed it and following/fav would help me out big time. I'll be seeing you guys in the next chapter._


	3. Sisterly Love

**Light of Hope Chapter 3**

 _ **A/N:** Yo what is going on people, here's another chapter but with a different character. The one thing I love about this series is the lore with the world, Dust, Grimm, Huntsmen, and many other aspects of this. This story was made after reading a lot of the theories made on here, so I plan on using them, if any were going to be in the next, that would be amazing. Hope you like it, enjoy!_

* * *

"Ah"

Weiss screamed as she woke up from a bad nightmare.

She gripped onto her bedsheets as she looked around, noticing that she was alone in her room in the Schnee's Mansion in Atlas.

Looking around, she felt alone as there was no one around, no Ruby, Blake or Yang. Even though she didn't admit, last time she woke from a bad nightmare, Ruby and the others woke up and wondered what happened. Weiss quickly acted like nothing happened and told them to get back into bed.

'It's much different now' she thought to herself as she laid back and fell asleep.

* * *

"HA…HYA"

Weiss was saying as she was practicing her moves in the grand hall, she was using her personal rapier, Myrtenaster. She knew how to fight as she was trained but she was trying to clear her mind, as she hated her conversation with her father.

He didn't like how there was this large of an incident where their armies were aiming on the citizens and many people were hurt, some possible killed. He demanded that she would finish her studies at Atlas Academy.

The more she though of the conversation, the more aggressive her attack style was.

Once her targets were all destroyed, she formed the summoning glyph behind her again, she remembered how she wanted to protect Velvet. She was fuming with rage, as she seen one robot coming towards her, she pointed at it and swiped downwards.

-THUD-

The ground shook as she seen a large light blue energy great-sword slam onto the ground, destroying the foe and cracking the marble floors.

She was exhaling as she looked back to see her summon, as it still had its arm formed, but it also formed a shoulder, showing that she's getting closer to summoning it completely.

-Clap-Clap-

Weiss looked back to see Winter clapping her hands, she was happy that she's showing progress.

"Good job Weiss, it looks like you have improved the last time we met."

"Thanks…" Weiss said as she didn't want to talk.

Winter noticed something was wrong with her sister, "What's wrong?"

Weiss quickly turned around and wanted to train some more, "Nothing's wrong, I mean why is nothing wrong right now, father finally got what he wanted."

"I see…" Winter said as she walked up to her sister, she pulled out her rapier and prepared for battle, "Why don't we have a duel?"

"What?" Weiss said as she looked back, shocked that she was challenged by Winter.

"If I win, you tell me what's going on, deal?"

Seeing her sister being serious, she knew she had to, so she stood straight and with her rapier, she lightly tapped her opponent's.

They jumped a step back as winter went aggressive and made a serious of quick jabs to test Weiss, but as expected Weiss either blocked the attacks or moved out of the way.

Weiss tried to make a frontal attack by slamming her blade onto her opponent's head but Winter blocked the attack, stopping her completely, "Is it because of Father?"

Weiss backed up and went with a series of attacks with pokes, jabs and slices towards her opponent.

Winter noticed that she's getting more aggressive as she mentioned their father,so she's starting to piece it together, "Is it because he made you leave Vale?"

Weiss grunted as she was getting closer, so she spun around, stabbing her Myrtenaster into the ground, causing the ice to shoot out, freezing Winter's feet onto the ground.

"I see…" Winter used her summoning glyph to summon the Beowulf to break the ice around her. She stepped out of her ice restraints as she let the summon charge towards her.

Weiss tried to attack it but the Beowulf dashed out of the attack, using its claws to tear into the Atlas uniform, destroying the arm section of clothing.

Weiss backed up as she had to decide which course of action to take, the Grimm… or her sister, though she's not experienced with it she had to use her summoning again.

Winter seen that the glyph appeared behind her, so she dashed towards her sister, knocking the blade out of her hand, and knocked her down, disabling the summoning.

"It appears that I won"

"Whatever" Weiss said as she got back up.

"Now you will tell me everything" Winter said as she put her sword away and crossed her arms, "we still have a deal."

"Fine! The reason why is that I actually never liked it here!" Weiss exclaimed as she was furious.

"So it was that talk with father, as he wanted you to leave Beacon, it was too dangerous there because of the attacks?"

Weiss simply nodded, "Yeah…"

"But it feels like this isn't all, as I suspect, you like your team?"

"Yeah, they're not like the servants here, team RWBY was something much different. They're the closest I ever had people I could call friends. Why doesn't he see that?"

The older sister knew what she was talking about, as their father wanted to see progress instead of personal connection.

Quickly, as she's her current ranking in the Atlasian Army, she has access to certain facilities, "I have an idea for one of your friends, Yang right?"

"Yeah, what do you have planned?" Weiss wondered what she thought about.

"We're going to see Dr. Polendina."

"Penny's father?" Weiss never met the man before but she heard of his work, working with the Atlasian Knights and Paladins, but the Penny project was something not many people knew about.

"Yes, but you should change, it's not proper to have a large tear like that" she pointed at her arm.

"Right" Weiss quickly ran towards her room to change into her regular combat skirt.

Once she came back, Winter was waiting near the training area.

"Sorry I'm late" Weiss said in a dignified manor.

"Don't worry about it, we won't alert father either, as he always want to control everything" Winter walked out the door, leading to their garage.

Weiss got into the passenger seat while Winter started her car and drove out, going towards the facility.

* * *

With a swipe of a card, the doors in front of the sisters opened up, showing Weiss for the first time.

Winter decided to show her the shortcut to his office, which was on the top floor.

"How do you have access to this building?"

Winter silently chuckled as she kept on walking, "If you do pass with high honors with Atlas Academy, you will have a good spot with the military. I'm with a special unit, but the rest is classified."

Weiss didn't want to question it, as Winter has her reasons, but she wondered about something, why did they want to meet the father to Penny.

* * *

The elevator doors opened as they walked over to the large set of doors, leading to the man they wanted to speak to.

"Oh hello Ms Schnee" A secretary said as she bowed her head down.

"Is Mr. Polendina here?"

"Yes, he should be in his office right now" The secretary got up from her seat and led them to the double doors and opened it for them.

They walked in as the doors closed behind them, where they seen a large desk ahead of them, with a tanned skin man was working on something.

"Ah welcome Winter, what brings you in today?" he said as he moved the projects he was working on lately, for security purposes.

"Nothing much, but I may need a favor to ask for" Winter said as she sounded when Ruby first met her.

"What's the favor?"

"We need a robotic right arm for a friend who recently lost her's"

Weiss was shocked to hear Winter say that, "Wait, you're serious?"

Winter nodded at her sister as she wanted to explain, "She lost her arm past her elbow from battle recently, that's why I came here today."

Mr. Polendina contemplated this for a few seconds, "I'll do it, but I will need to know a few things to make the right parts for her, so I'll need you to bring her in."

His computer started up, showing dozens of holograms of robotic parts, and the diagrams of piecing them together.

Weiss watched as Winter examined the same diagrams, with the older sister nodding, "Thank you, we'll be back in a few days time."

They walked out with the designer laughing, "Take care ladies."

* * *

"Thank you so much Winter" Weiss smiled as she was happy that they were going to help their friend.

"You don't need to thank me just yet, we still have to find a way to bring her into Atlas, you know it isn't easy to bring in a person and fit them with our technology"

"Ohh…" Weiss looked away as she was right, they have strict laws, as the military's laws were placed in different timelines after the war.

"But it isn't going to be difficult, we may just have to 'borrow' the family plane" Though Winter was a perfect person in the eyes of the law, she would always help her little sister out, even if it breaks a few laws.

"Wow, you never acted this way before?" Weiss asked as this was the first time she would cast aside the laws of Atlas.

"I never seen you this happy before," Winter also never seen Weiss this sad after being away from Vale, as she never had anyone to call a friend.

"Right, well what are we waiting for?" Weiss said as they were entering the car.

"We have find a way to take the plane without father noticing" Winter wondered when would be a good plan.

"Why don't we take it tonight?" Weiss suggested.

"Tonight?"

Weiss nodded, "Yeah, you know father's a heavy sleeper, he wouldn't notice. All we have to tell the servants that we're on official business."

"Good thinking" Winter smiled as she was happy to see Weiss thinking out of the box.

"Thanks"

* * *

Weiss opened her eyes as the clock stuck midnight, she threw her covers off, revealing that she was already dressed. She got out of her bed, grabbing her bag with dust crystals and her rapier.

Upon leaving the house, she's going with the plan alone, as Winter is still needed here.

Thankfully the staff would help out by taking her to Vale, and they promised to not say a thing to father as well.

They quickly brought the young heiress to the airport so she could use the private jet.

She got out of the limo as she waved at them, as she knew that she could get into some serious trouble if she gets caught.

"Where would you like to go Ms. Schnee?" the pilot asked as he was secretly wondering why she had to go in the middle of the night.

"I need to go to Vale to find someone" Weiss simply said without implying anything personal.

"…OK" the pilot closed the door and had the plane prepared for take-off.

Weiss smiled as the plane got enough speed as it left the ground, and making its flight towards Vale, as she's trying to get team RWBY back together, and show her father that she belongs at Beacon.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** And that's the end of chapter 3 folks. It was fun making this chapter, we don't know if Winter breaks the rules, as she barely had enough screen time, I hope season 4 has some more character development in it so we could find out more about the characters._

 _Remember to leave a review, and following/favoriting this story will help out, if you have a suggestion, that would be nice to see and until next time, see you later._


	4. Meeting the Virtues

**Light of Hope Chapter 4 'Meeting the Virtues'**

 **A/N:** _Yo what is going on readers, and again apologizes for not updating last week, as this week was my finals for my classes. Now I'm free for the summer until I go to another university and continue my classes._

 _I decided to upload a day early, as RWBY Volume 3 came out on Blu-Ray/DVD and the soundtrack. So far I'm hyped wanting to watch the new Chibi series this weekend._

* * *

Sophia was happily walking ahead of the groups, leading towards her house, "We're here."

"Where?" Ren asked as they were walking to a normal apartment complex…

"This is my place, my father modified the place so we could recruit other people" She simply said as she opened the door and let the injured in first then allowing Ruby and her friends to enter.

"Recruit, it sounds like you're going into war?" Jaune said as he was the last to enter the house as Sophia closed the door behind them.

"Well, we're getting ready for one" Sophia said as she smiled to the group.

"WHAT" Ruby and the rest of the team were shocked to hear about this, there wasn't anything related with a war since the Great War, over 80 years ago.

The boy Faunus crossed his arms as he wanted to explain why this was happening, "It's not like a kingdom going to fight another kingdom but more like, mercenaries going to fight its government as Cinder and her forces weren't exactly small either."

A Faunus Cat girl was agreeing with her arm over another teammates' shoulder, showing that she was hurt, "We don't know how, but she's considered a colonel or higher ranking, so we don't know who's really the leader of her 'Syndicate'."

"Syndicate?" Jaune asked as he doesn't know what she was implying, like she was working underground.

"You're catching on" The leader of Team HELP, a black haired Bunny Faunus smiled as he liked Jaune, as he doesn't show much physical potential but he probably makes up in mentality.

"Huh? Oh uh, I'm sorry but who are you?" Jaune asked the Bunny Faunus as he was looking at the ears, sharing the ear trait with his classmate, Velvet.

"I'm sorry" The bunny Faunus said as he limped to a chair and sat down, readjusting his glasses "My name is Han Harper, the leader of HELP, we're one of the 2 teams of Virtue. Somehow, the citizens here had called us by a nickname that they chose for us, as I'm called Humility as I don't try to be the best but make do with what I have."

He pulled out his Rapier with no other modifications, as he said, "This is my weapon of choice, by calling it Thermal Chaos."

"Ohhh" Ruby was mainly staring at the rapier, as it was an ordinary one, but she was mainly curious why he called it 'Thermal Chaos', could it be something to do with fire…

"Since Bunny boy just introduced himself, we should as well right?" A brown haired girl said as she looked at the others around. She watched as everyone nodded or agreed in someway, like a smiled or a thumb's up.

She smiled as she clapped her hands together, "Ok, my name is Eminence Erebus, though I go by Esther these days," she pulled out her dual pistols and had one shift into a small curved blade, "These are my main weapons, Shroud Caster."

Ruby liked to see a new weapon she never saw before, as she seen many other weapons, like a Hover-board that transform into guns and a hammer/grenade launcher. She was sort of hearing a story being told but she couldn't hear it as she was examining the weapons, though most were already put away.

Esther stopped as she knew she was rambling on again, "Sorry about that, Lawerence?"

The light grey haired male sighed and nodded as he was already sitting on a chair, "Name's Lawerence Lilith, nickname being Loyalty. And here's my Naginata, Rising Ashes" he pulled out his blade, he didn't say much, he looked over to another person to show he was done talking, "Done…"

Jaune looked at him with curiosity, where he only said a few things about himself.

The deer faunus nodded as she heard him, "My name is Pandora Page, also called Patience. And this is my sniper, by calling it Striking Shadow, I use this to hunt my foes in the darkness." She spun the sniper around as it turned into a long staff with a sharp end, looking like a Pike.

"We are team HELP, and next to us is team CPAS(compassion) as we will fulfill our duties and become huntsmen, guardians of our kingdoms." Han said as Pandora finished introduced herself.

"Thank you" a male dog faunus with a black colored tail instead of having ears said. He has short black hair, as it didn't cover his blue eyes, but what makes him different is that he has the dust signature like it was infused with clothing but it was showing on his arms and hands.

"My name is Ciel Collins, as I am supposably representing charity." He pulled out his hatchets, one transformed into a sub-machine gun, "And these are my weapons of choice, by calling them Ice Shard, they help me freeze my foes."

Another guy was nodding as he brought his hands up, but he was wearing some metal gauntlets as he slammed his fists like Yang did, "I'm Pastel Payne, and sure I'm also Charity but I couldn't care less. These beauties are my main weapon, as I mainly carry both gauntlets like these and my shoes were custom made with metal so I could fight Mercury more efficiently."

Sophia wanted to introduce herself but a faunus cat girl interrupted her, "before Sophia says anything, I'm Amethyst Ashford. This staff of mine is a shotgun as well," she broke her staff in half revealing 2 shotguns with extended barrels, "not like yours Sun as yours could act like nunchakus, mine are more for shooting my targets, not hurting them."

Ruby sat there looking at bother weapons, wondering on how they should battle against each other, she imagined it in her head as she heard someone clear her throat.

"Since I'm the last one, but my real name is Silver Shadowend, but everyone here calls me Sophia and this weapon is also a lantern as well, calling it my Light of Hope." She pressed a button to have some metal move aside to reveal a piece of dust the illuminated brightly.

"Ok that sounds good kids" an older male said as he was behind Nora.

Nora looked back and instantly fell to her butt, "Woah."

"Something wrong?" the tanned male said, looking at her.

"Here" Ren grabbed onto Nora's hand and pulled her back up.

Sophia ran up and hugged the tall muscular man, "Hi dad."

"Hi sweetie" he gently put his arms around her.

"Going to tell them"

He nodded, "We got it from here."

Some huntsmen entered the large room as it appears that they're getting ready for something.

"What's going on?" Jaune asked as he seen their expressions, they don't appear friendly.

"My name is Dante Shadowend, and as you could tell about our militia. Our main goals on stopping their plans on total war."

"What, why would there be a war, we're in a time of peace." Ruby looked around, not wanting to believe the situation.

"It all went down after the Vytal Festival, as we seen Pyrrha Nikos stuck down another student, and we seen Atlas was making a synthetic army and how Vale taught students to mercilessly kill. We didn't like it but sometimes the news would periodic come back on and show us video footage of citizens being attacked by White Fang, Grimm and worst of all, their own robots attacking the citizens." Mr Shadowend said, remembering watching the citizens being hurt by their allies.

Ruby was shocked to hear what the world might've thought the same with that battle, but she just wanted to be clear, "We were there, in the midst of it all."

"We know, team SSSN here told us what also happened and I'm glad you and your friends did in order to protect the kingdom" he closed his eyes while he looked at Sun, "But once we got word that it had ended, things changed…"

Ruby looked around, seeing how the people had the same type of expression as something bad must've happened.

Sighing, the leader of the Virtues said, "That the Atlesian forces was responsible for this incident, for killing many of the residents in Vale, especially killing an untold amount of our residents."

Ruby remembered what happened that caused the robotic forces to go against them,"They didn't have control with their forces, it was another person who did that."

Dante and the other leaders, including some of the members of Teams CPAS and HELP looked at Ruby, wanting to know, "It was a person named Roman Torchwick, he was working with the White Fang while they were committing major dust crimes against the city."

"Roman Torchwick…" Dante must've heard that name as it rung a bell in his head, "where is he right now?"

Ruby thought back on that night, as she fought against both him and Neo, "I was fighting his partner, I defeated her by pressing onto her umbrella, causing her to be taken by the wind. Roman managed to disarm me but before he could hurt me, he was eaten by a Grimm."

"What" The general said as he tried to remember what she said, "like torn apart or something?"

"No. He was swallowed whole, like a snake does" Ruby watched as a large Griffon managed to swallow him.

"Where is the Grimm, did you kill it?"

Ruby nodded, "Yeah, I managed to kick its head into the Atlas ship controlling the robots."

"So you single-handedly defeated a criminal and his partner by pressing onto a button of an umbrella and let a Grimm swallow him. And to make matters better, you kicked the same Grimm into the ship controlling the Knights and Paladin, disabling them completely, and ending the battle?"

Ruby agains nods as the tall black haired man was saying it aloud, "Yep."

"Wow… Sun you weren't wrong when you said that she was an 'interesting' person"

Sun shrugged, peeling a banana, "I know right, she's one of a kind."

"Well back onto the matter at hand, we have some suspicion that Cinder's trusted comrades are Emerald Sustrai, Mercury Black and Neapolitan, we found out that she's getting her guidance from an outside force"

All of the younger forces were shocked to hear about this.

Jaune wondered about that, "I don't get what you mean, wasn't she the one for formulated the plan?"

Dante shook his head, "We received intelligence from an insider, that she calls this person periodically, calling it 'Salem,' we don't know much but by listening to recordings, she was saying about phase 2."

"So… do you have a plan?" Ruby asked, wondering if he has anything planned.

Dante smiled, "I like you Ruby, wanting to get to the point. We'll be making a plan to infiltrate into Haven Academy as many of our records were in there, containing any kind of information related to the maiden's power."

"Wait" Jaune asked raising his hand, "I thought no one really knew the power of the maidens until Cinder revealed it?"

"Good thinking Jaune, but no, we Huntsmen have access to a lot of documents. Though granted some were deemed false, we found out that there's a few documents made throughout history from the actual maidens, recording their strengths and weaknesses, just in case one was falling into the wrong side."

"Do all of the academies have these documents?" Ren asked as he wondered if Beacon Academy had the same.

"Yes, but it's in the vaults underneath the school and what team SSSN told us, Beacon is overrun by Grimm by this moment, making it difficult to get them."

"Ohhhh…" Ruby said, remembering the frozen dragon.

"We will let you have our scrolls to enter the building unnoticed, while Team SSSN here will bring you to the vault entrance located to the elevator that goes up to the headmaster's floor."

"Wait, I checked that elevator, there's no other button that will lead it towards the underground section" Sun remembered exactly, he went up there a lot because he wasn't a 'perfect' student.

"That's where the scroll comes to play, it make a signal to the control panel, revealing a secret button only certain professors could access."

"Oh" Sun still ate into his banana.

"So it'll be me, being accompanied by Sun's team?" Ruby asked, wanting to get important information.

"Correct, the less people involved the better, the security now directly reports to Cinder, so watch out when you're in the archives. There will be likely to be guards there."

Ruby stared into his eyes and nodded, "I won't let you down sir."

The general smiled to see her determination, "I'm glad to hear that Ruby."

Jaune wanted to know what he and his team's doing, "What about us sir?"

Dante looked at them, like he didn't want to tell them "We found out who recently passed away from our kingdom and brought it to their families the grim news but there's still one person we didn't tell yet."

Jaune instantly knew where he was going, "Pyrrha…"

Dante nodded, "Yes, we thought that it would be best that you would, she was your teammate. We were originally going to get you guys ourselves but once we received word from Qrow, it made it much easier for us."

Jaune looked at both Ren and Nora, remembering the memories they shared with their teammate and friend. They wished on how she could've survived and lived another day, and how Jaune could've gotten the courage to ask her out, but that was only a dream, "We'll go meet them, where do they live."

A close huntsman cleared his throat and said, "Pyrrha's mother lives nearby, only a few blocks down south."

Jaune looked back, wondering about her father, "She only had a mother?"

The huntsman had his eyes closed but he nodded in agreement, "Her father died in the line of battle against Grimm, I was there to deliver the news to the family, it pains me to this day of how I could've helped but I didn't."

Jaune held a fist close to his chest as he's going through the same thing right now, he could've stopped her, but he just let her push him into the locker, "I know what you mean," he looked back at the general, "We'll do it."

Dante clapped his hands together, "Ok, its settled, now go on your missions and good luck."

Ruby walked over to Sun's team, quickly getting ready and leaving the building.

Without thinking Ruby shouted, "Let's move out!"

"Wait Ruby" Sun said, despite being too late as she already left the building. Sighing, he and the rest of the team had to catch up to little red and make sure she didn't get lost on the way there.

* * *

Jaune walked into a nearby room, still thinking of the incident in his head, Pyrrha going to the vault, learning what a maiden was, and seeing Pyrrha leave to fight Cinder, only to never come back. He looked down at his hands and clenched them together tightly, seeing himself as a failure. He fell to his knees, he closed his eyes as he was cursing underneath his breath.

"Still feeling it Jaune?"

The blonde opened his eyes and looked up to see both Ren and Nora standing in front of him, with a saddened expression, "Yeah, I'm just mad at how I'm a stupid idiot who let their teammate get killed."

Nora placed her hammer onto the ground, "It wasn't your fault Jaune…"

"THEN WHO'S FAULT IS IT"

Nora quickly took a step back, this was the first time Jaune ever yelled at them.

"Jaune…"

"I could've been there for her when she was feeling down but no, I was a fool for not seeing it! She was always there when I was going through the bullying, with Cardin and even becoming a tutor for me and what do I do, nothing. The kingdoms appear to be splitting up, if I could've been there with her, if only I was stronger, we could've defeated that woman and prevent this from happening!"

Ren was mad that he snapped on Nora, so he decided to yell back "Jaune, if you pay attention for a second, Pyrrha was taken from us from Cinder, a person who pretended to be our comrade. She's the one who split the kingdoms, and to make matters worse, she has the power of the maiden's now. So we need to find her and stop her from doing anymore damage."

Jaune stopped as he never heard Ren snap back like that, he looked down as tears were starting to form around his eyes, "Sorry, I don't know what came over me. It's just that… it's never going to be the same…"

Both Ren and Nora made their way to the door, "We'll leave you alone if you want?"

Jaune waved at them and held a thumb's up, "Thanks guys."

Ren simply nodded as the door closed in between them.

Nora was curious with her leader, "Do you think he's gonna be ok?"

Ren though about it, "He's come a long way but this is much different from a physical injury, we'll have to watch and see what becomes of him after."

Nora thought about it but it was making her confused, "I swear you and your philosophy…"

* * *

Jaune removed his backpack as he decided to pull out the only item inside, Pyrrha's weapons. The spear was damaged as it broke in 2 places but at least the shield was preserved, "I don't know what to do, you always had something planned."

He placed his head against the shield as he remembered the times his face was slammed by this, chuckling, he thought of what Ren said as he shouldn't dwell on the past. He placed the weapons inside, knowing that he has to move on.

He walked out of the door, to signal both of his friends that he's ready to leave, "Let's move out."

Ren and Nora were happy to see him back, "Lead away."

Jaune walked over to the front door and remembered where the Nikos household was located and walked straight there.

* * *

 **A/N:** _I didn't think this scene with Jaune went this long but I was listening to some good songs while writing this and got into the mood. Tell me what you guys think and until next time, take care._


	5. Breaking Into Class

**Chapter 5 Breaking into class**

 _ **A/N:** Hey guys, sorry for the very late update, within the past week or so, I was very busy with many unexpected things that had taken much of my time, and coping with the death of a dear friend. Anyway, to make it up, I'll try to update a few chapters for this week._

* * *

Ruby ran out of the house with rose petals appearing behind her "Ok guys follow me!"

Sun and the rest of his team grunted as they had to lead ahead, since they live here, they already know the quickest route to Haven, "Ruby wait up!"

Scarlet shut the door behind him, shaking his head, remembering what the general said, "She's sure interesting, I don't know how you can keep up with her…"

"Yeah" Sun said, scratching the back of his head, "she may not be the brightest one, but she has heart. No matter what comes in her direction, she could somehow handle, you seen what she did with the dragon back at Beacon?"

Neptune thought back as he remembered and Sun was right, "But how are we going to catch her?"

"Think about it guys, Blake told me that she's a sucker for cookies, so we may need to think of a way to get her attention and quick, or we'll have to do it ourselves."

Neptune nodded as Sun was right, "Right… but who here has some cookies already in hand?"

The guys all looked at each other, wondering who would have an idea, but none were saying a thing.

"Ok, plan B it is" Sun said before he looked at Sage, "Uh Sage, what are you doing?"

Sage stopped checking his backpack and pulled out a box, "I already have a box of cookie."

Sun looked shocked as he must've thought of this before anyone knew, "How did you know this was going to happen?"

Sage looked at his 3 friends and shrugged, "I didn't."

Sun threw his arms in the air as he didn't believe this and Neptune laughed so hard that he fell onto his butt and rolled around.

Scarlet scratched his chin, "So let me get this straight, you carry around a box of cookies wherever you go?"

Sage pulled out a cookie and ate it, "Yeah, is this a problem?"

Scarlet didn't mind whatsoever, "I don't."

Sun yelled out, "You could've shared them with us during that time we're stranded without food for a couple of hours or that time during detention?"

Sage finished eating his third cookie, "I don't want to share with you guys, you'll take it all."

Neptune looked away, pouting about what he just said, "That's harsh man."

"Enough with this, we need to get Ruby quick."

"Uh Sun"

Sun looked back to his teammate, "What is it now Sage"

Sage had one carrying his box and one hand hanging onto Ruby's hood, she was trying to steal some cookies for herself, "Got her…"

Sun had a straight face as he didn't know what to say, "Never mind about that plan, anyway Ruby" the young huntress stopped as she her name called out, "you were going in the wrong direction, its that way."

Ruby looked over to see another large building in the horizon, it heavily resembles Beacon but it was built closer to the city opposed to what Vale did and place their school on the edge of a cliff.

Sun heard someone eating something, so he looked at Sage but he had an annoyed expression, without thinking they all looked at Ruby, where she had the box of cookies in her hands, already consuming the delicious snacks.

"Wha… how?"

Sage crossed his arms in a disapproving manner, "Her speed could play in a good role but stealing is not a smart move."

Ruby looked up at them, "What? I was hungry on the way here."

"Never mind, we have to get there soon before the sun gets up" Sun checked his scroll, seeing it as 10pm. He ran up ahead with Scarlet and Neptune behind him.

"Oh right" Ruby quickly ate the rest of the cookies up and gave Sage the box, "thanks."

Sage simply grunted as he followed the group.

* * *

Ruby followed Sun around as they were sort of giving her a small tour of Haven Academy, like how she did with Sun when he first arrived.

"We need to go into the Headmaster's Quarter over there" Sun pointed to the tall building, acting like a communication hub for the school, almost like the CCT.

Neptune already picked the lock while Scarlet went inside, making sure the coast was clear. Quickly Scarlet motioned the guys over, already knowing no one was around at this time, no janitors, no late night teachers, nothing.

"Is it always this quiet?" Ruby knew that beacon was this quiet when she was roaming the halls in the middle of the night, because she couldn't sleep.

"Normally no, but the security was always roaming around after we came back from Vale, this is so weird…" Sun was checking around not find anything, "Back on the mission, the elevator's that way."

Ruby followed the faunus guy, the rest of Sun's team would be patrolling the area to make sure nothing's wrong.

When they entered a large cylinder-like area with 4 elevators, Sun smiled, remembering the countless times he went up to the headmaster's office because of his misdeeds.

"Over here" Sun waved over, pressing the button on one of the elevators, with one opening immediately.

"Where's the archives?" Ruby asked, knowing nothing what the general had said to them during the debriefing a few hours ago.

Sun pulled out a scroll and had it close to the control panel, "Watch and learn Ruby," and instantly the panel shifted the button layout and hidden compartment opened, revealing a button that wasn't there before.

Sun pushed the button, resulting with both doors closing and they were going down into the underground facilities containing the secrets of each nation, the real fair tales, and military strategy.

-THUD-

The doors slid open, showing both students one of the largest collection of documents collected for centuries.

Sun examined the frontal view, with nothing but large bookshelves containing so much knowledge of the past, "Wow, so which one contains the one we need?"

Ruby looked around, pulling out a book and tried to read it, but realized that it was written in an ancient language, "Nope."

Sun smiled, they both knew they would spend a lot of time searching but they don't have enough time, "Come on, we should split up."

Ruby waved back, "Sure, I'll check here and you'll check the rest of the area."

Sun looked behind the shelves, seeing much more documents piled up from unknown periods of time, "…Great…"

* * *

Sage continued his search for anything, checking the building. He walked by the window to see one person walking towards the building where both Ruby and Sun were in, "Guys, we got a problem."

"Who's coming at this hour?" Scarlet was questioning why now.

Sage had a better look at the person, "It's one of the loyal members of sin, the representation of pride, Perdita Payne."

"Not good," Neptune pulled out his weapon as they knew a fight would be coming, "Sun did you hear that?"

"Yeah I heard it" Sun pulled out some random documents and threw them away, "we can't find the darn thing, its like a maze in here with useless stuff."

"Hurry up, she just entered the building, we don't see any other guards right now?"

"Ok" Sun put the scroll away but he wanted to know where Ruby was so they could get out safely, "RUBY!"

"Here" Ruby's head popped out from a large collection of books.

"We have to go now" Sun looked back to see the elevator doors open again, but to reveal Perdita, "Damn."

Perdita smiled as she brushed her dark blue hair out of the way, "Oh what do we have here, intruders in the archives."

She started to walk closer to them, "Normally one would simply call the authorities and have them handle the situation but since we don't follow the rules like you to should be doing, I'll have to eliminate you myself," She pulled out her weapon, a shield with the edges having chainsaw chains to shred her enemies.

"Where's your team?" Sun asked, wanting to know if they're going to make an appearance.

"They're not here, I was just gonna do my weekly check on the archives, I must admit, you and your friend here just threw the books around, not appreciating the history they taught."

"We're in a hurry, so we couldn't care less what happens to these books."

"I see… so the only option is to be killed by me" Perdita smiled as she slammed her fist, with the shield shredding the ground, "Here I come."

Both Sun and Ruby pulled out their weapons to battle with her and got out of the way before she could touch them.

Ruby seen how Perdita attacks, mainly blunt and slow movements, so if she and Sun could move around, she couldn't have a chance.

Ruby used her semblance to run around the opponent while Sun used his staff to hit her, knocking her down in the process.

Perdita laughed, as it was a first that she had to encounter 2 fast people, "Normally I would let either Lynx or Enya handle people like you but I have to change my methods."

She got up to her feet, pulling the shield in half, "My Chain Pain's first form is a shield to take the hit for my team but you'll see why I'm the leader of PLGE," the metal chain around the shield was hanging off of the 2 halves.

Sun watched as Perdita's weapon went from melee and into 2 shotguns with the chains wrapped around underneath the barrels.

"Get ready" Perdita shot her gun in their directions and had one shotgun turn into a whip, just in case one gets too close.

"What?" Sun quickly changed from attacking and into evasive actions, this was his first time fighting her without her shield.

She lashed her whip out to Sun's staff and shot her gun at him.

Sun quickly reacted and had his staff break apart and spun hit nun chucks around, blocking the blast and countered with his barrage of attacks.

Perdita smiled as she reverted her staff into one half of the shield and blocked majority of the attack while she shot towards the last direction the red-hooded girl was, "You're very skilled for being young students, no wonder why out leader had problems getting rid of you."

"Where's the rest of your teammates, aren't they all in with your plan of domination?" Ruby asked, remembering there's 7 more causing her new friends problems.

She looked at the both of them but she gazed around the archives, "You don't need to worry about them, they all hate the archives, they mainly see it as a place to burn up once we're done with this place."

Sun had his staff ready and when he noticed a perfect opportunity, where she was looking away, he charged in for a quick and easy win.

Perdita seen him but couldn't react fast enough, letting him get a good attack with his foot to her face, knocking her down onto a table, breaking it in half.

Ruby watched as she and he high-fived.

'Hmph' Perdita smiled but quickly faded when her scroll had a message from Cinder, reading it said, 'Report back to the dorms asap.'

'Damn,' Perdita grunted as she got up from where she landed.

Both Sun and Ruby had their weapons already on hand, ready for another round, "Ready?"

Pride smiled, "Not this time, I have business elsewhere, but before I have to go, aren't you looking for something?"

"Why do you want to know?" Ruby answered, not wanting to ruin their plans.

Perdita put her weapon away, raising both her hands, "I do not have anything personal against you… yet, but since you defeated me in battle, you may ask me anything. It's one of our codes for being one of Cinder's legion."

"Ok, where's the book containing the information of the maidens?" Sun wanted to know so they can get out of here.

Their opponent had a thinking expression on her, quickly remembering where it was, and led them to the right aisle, where it was 30 rows away from where they entered.

She went up to pull it out of the shelf, "This book was created by the maidens, wanting to show their power to the world, but thanks to your secret group, what they were called…" asking what they were until she remembered, "oh right, the Brotherhood. They wanted to keep their power secret for obvious reasons, but thanks to Cinder, she showed the world her power."

Ruby looked at her as to why she was helping them, "It seems like a trap, why are you telling us this?"

Perdita looked at them but smiled, "It's because the Virtues were once our friends to, our history was sort of… complicated but we were all comrades until Cinder and her plan went into motion. I had to partake with the plan, since I was the leader of PLGE, and take the role of Pride. I just wanted to study in peace, but I can't have that now…"

Sun grabbed the book, "Are you the informant for the Virtues?"

Their opponent looked at them but shook her head, "No, I'm one of them, but the one who reports to you is someone else, I can't say anything else. Now go, and make sure my brother knows that's his sister is still ok."

Ruby thought about it, not knowing who it was, but Sun nodded, "I will, don't worry about that."

Perdita was happy, she trusts her teammates, both Virtues and Sins, but she doesn't trust Cinder.

Ruby and Sun ran over to the elevator and went up, Perdita pulled out her scroll and called someone, "Yeah, its me, they have the book of the Maidens and about to move on with their next phase, time to activate ours… tonight? Yeah, sounds good."

* * *

Scarlet and the rest of the team ran over when they seen their teammates exit the elevator, "What happened?"

"We ran into Perdita, but luckily Ruby and I handled her and got the book."

"Great let's get out here?" Neptune was the first to leave the scene.

Ruby looked back, wondering if Perdita was truly evil or good? She looked ahead and noticed she was behind the group, so she activated her speed and ran past the group.

"RUBY WAIT UP" Sun exclaimed, knowing that it was too late trying to make her listen.


	6. Unlucky Soul

**RWBY Light of Hope Chapter 6**

 _ **A/N:** Hey what is going on guys, I spent some extra time on this chapter. It was complete on Friday but after many rewrites on some parts, it was delayed until now, so enjoy and please review._

* * *

'I don't know if I should…'

'Should I tell but if I do, how do bring it gently…'

'I bet she'll hate once she'll find out the truth'

Jaune was thinking of the multiple possibilities how Pyrrha's mother would hate him for letting her daughter fight alone and be killed by another. He never met her before, and upon finding out what happened to her father, he even feels worse now he has to tell the news himself.

"Jaune… Jaune" He heard his name being called out, but it sounded very distant.

Jaune looked up, seeing a street and noticing that he was walking on a sidewalk, with no sight of an ending to the endless concrete.

"JAUNE!" the female voice yelled at his ear.

"WOAH" Jaune quickly loses his balance and fell down onto the concrete. He looked up to see his teammates Ren and Nora in front of him. He looked down onto the ground, "I don't know if I can do this right now?"

"It's hard right now, since we just found out where she lived and how she never found out." Ren simply said, something the he and Nora never really knew was how to bring bad news to families since they never had any to begin with.

"Yeah, won't she going to hate us for we could've saved her daughter? I mean, I could've stopped her but she just kissed me and she pushed me into the locker. I just watched her go into the tower for the final time, but it was inevitable that she was going to lose to that woman."

Ren watched as Jaune was being so much in distraught right now, the ninja watched as Jaune fell to his knees. So he was on one knee and placed a hand on his shoulder, "That's something we cannot control, if we could've, then the situations could always be much better than it seems, if both Nora and I knew about our parents, then we wouldn't have been orphans, but who's to say we would've become huntsmen?"

"I don't know what you're saying?"

Ren cleared his throat, "I'm simply saying, is to stop looking at the possibilities of the past to make things better but if you never stop moving forward, the same problems will still arise no matter how prepared you'll become."

Jaune looked at his teammate but looked down, he was right, if he wanted to change this, he must acknowledge what happened and confront his newest challenge, he looked back and smiled, "Thanks Ren, I don't know what to do without you and Nora."

Ren smiled as he got up to his feet, "Come on Jaune, Mrs. Nikos is still a few blocks away."

The blonde nodded, "Right, but how will we tell her about what happened?"

They had thought about it but they will tell what happened during the match and during the battle.

* * *

Jaune pulled out his scroll to see where's the house from his gps, wanting to make sure he has the right address. The dot they were seeing was right in front of them. Jaune looked up to see a decently sized house, it was like many other houses in this block.

"This must be it" Jaune walked up to the front door and knocked on it.

They heard someone say, 'coming' from within the house, hearing it was a female voice, they knew that this must be her.

The door slowly open to a woman almost like Pyrrha, but she was slightly shorter than her daughter. Her hair wasn't tied back in any way so some of her hair was covering her face.

"Yes, can I help you?" She said as her hand was still holding onto the door.

"Mrs. Nikos?" Jaune said to the woman.

"Yes?"

"My name is Jaune Arc, we're your daughters teammates from Vale."

Her face lightened up, "Oh so you're my daughters new friends."

All three looked at each other, as they didn't expect her mother to know right away.

She forgot to invite them in, "Oh sorry, but please come on in."

Jaune was the first then come Ren and Nora, they were surprised how normal-looking Pyrrha's old home was like before she came to Vale.

"She told me so much when she was calling home, how she would be top of her class like she would back home." She led them to the living room and sat down on one of the chairs sitting in front of their TV, "Please take a seat."

The team listened and sat down on the sofa, "Thank you for having us Mrs. Nikos."

"It's a pleasure to have you come by, its been rather lonely without Pyrrha after she left for Beacon, what's she up to right now."

Jaune couldn't look at her, as she reminded him so much like his crush.

She seen how he reacted, "Is it because of the tournament?"

Jaune stiffened up as she was getting close to the subject, "Yeah…"

"What happened to that girl she was fighting, was she killed?"

Ren remembered that fight all to well, "She was a synthetic robot created by the Atlasian Army."

"But what happened to the rest of the match, after that happened, the video stopped and someone else was talking instead of the commenters, was that planned?"

Jaune shook his head, "No, that person caused one of the biggest incidents in Beacon along with Vale's history."

"What? That can't be, we're in a time of peace?"

Ren decided to say what happened next, "When she took the mic, the Grimm attacked the areas around the city, along with a large Nevermore attacked the arena. We luckily got rid of it, but it doesn't end there. The White Fang also attacked the school, and they released Grimm onto the school as well, harming many people."

Pyrrha's mom put her hands in front of her mouth, "No."

"Luckily many people didn't see much of that battle, because of someone hacked the Atlasian ships, causing our robotic army to attack us." Ren told her from what Ruby told them after the commotion had ended.

"What happened to Pyrrha, is she ok?"

Jaune knew that this moment was it, "I'm so sorry ma'am."

Pyrrha's mother looked at them astonished to hear about that, "What happen?"

Jaune thought back on that night, remembering every moment that past, "We were in the vault underneath the school, professor Ozpin was there but one of the students from Mistral was the culprit all along, as she and her partners were behind the entire incidents that occurred. She killed one of the people with us with her arrow. We tried to attack her, but Ozpin told us to get out and alert everyone else of what happened," he paused for a second to catch up, "we left the tower without knowing what's about to happen. We knew that she must've won because she flew up to the top of the CCT. She wanted to fight her but I tried to stop her, though she pushed me into a locker and made sure I was safe."

Jaune stopped, wanting to make sure he was correct on what he had said, "When I got out of the locker, the dragon was circling around the tower. I couldn't reach her at all, I was helpless until there was a flash of light covering the tower."

Pyrrha's mother looked at him strangely, "A light?"

Ren nodded, "Our friend defeated the dragon with that light and the woman responsible, when her uncle came back with her, Pyrrha was never found. He told us that she was struck in the chest with an arrow and was killed in the line of battle."

The mother's eyes were watering up as tears were rolling down, "How could this have happened?"

"I'm sorry madam, but Cinder was too powerful for us to stop her."

"It's ok, it's not the first time I've lost someone close to me" she looked back to see a collection of photos, "I lost my husband years ago before Pyrrha was old enough to enter school, it broke our hearts to hear of that but now it's just me."

The blonde felt the sorrow the man from before, where he had to tell the news to her years ago, "I will do my best to find her."

"Jaune" both Ren and Nora said to their leader, as this was the first time he wanted revenge.

"She's still here, we have to find her right away."

"No"

Jaune looked over to see the mother shaking her head, "Why? This woman took your daughter's life, it's the right thing to do?"

"It's true to get your vengeance but if you let it consume you like it did with the people did in the past, it will only end in sorrow, then the people who loved her will loathe you in return. They will do the same with vengeance and they to will end in regret, an endless cycle that will only continue."

Jaune thought about it but knew that she was right, "What should we do now?"

"Go to your friends, because it sounds like a fight going to happen. I can't say how it'll turn out, but make sure you don't loose your friends again."

The members of team JNPR all smiled as they knew she wasn't mad at them, but look forgiving. Jaune nodded towards her, "We will."

"And before you leave, there's a few things to tell you about Pyrrha."

Jaune looked back when they were about to leave, "What is it?"

"Pyrrha wasn't always the most popular figure when she was younger, instead she was bullied for being different, her red hair and green eyes were one reason. She would often go to bed crying, she thought she was quiet on it, call it a mother's intuition. She wanted to be the best and she did, but she sounded the happiest she's ever been. She would often tell me stories before she hanged up. She would tell me all about you Jaune."

"Me?"

"Yes, she said many good things about you, as you were the first guy she ever liked. She told me how she was training you how to fight, it was a funny story, normally I expected someone training her."

"Yeah, she was always there for me, even when someone was bullying me, she wanted to handle it. What ended that was me saving his life from a Grimm."

"To show kindness to your enemies, that's a way to show mercy."

Jaune looked to the door as he was going out, "I doubt that's what Cinder did when she killed Pyrrha."

Pyrrha's mom waved at them, "Do take care guys, and the best of luck for what's to come."

"Thanks" Nora simply said as they walked out of the house, "So what should we do now?"

"We go back to the Virtues; they have a plan of what to do with Cinder's forces." Jaune made a few short plans, thinking of their abilities, but the only problems is how many are with her?

Ren knew that the young red hooded girl has the most intel, "Ruby might have a few ideas, we should discuss with her."

"Yeah, you're right, lets get back."


	7. Things Don't Go as Planned

**RWBY Light of Hope Chapter 7**

 **A/N:** _Hey guys, decided to upload the next chapter early. If you liked it, please leave a review, enjoy!_

* * *

Perdita walked back into a large building in Mistral, right next to the mayor's office with a smile on her face.

"Oooh, what got you all happy?" A female voice called out from beside her.

Perdita looked to see a girl with light green hair and seen her wear a black tight leather jacket and high heels to hopefully catch up to her height, "Its none of your business Griffon."

"Oh come on Perdita, whenever you smile, it's always something interesting like beating the stuffing out of someone." Griffon acted one small section where Perdita slammed her fist down like she always does.

"It's nothing like that, I just found a new book in the archives but I forgot it when you called me back" Perdita lied, knowing that she was actually aiding Ruby and Sun with the book of Maidens.

Griffon simply shrugged, "Cinder requested all of us to arrive for a new unveiling or whatever."

"What about Enya and Lynx, did they show up yet?" Perdita was wondering, since knowing them, they would probably be late as usual.

"Yo, you called boss?" a tall male with brown hair and brown eyes entered the room, he has red markings on his skin resembling the patterns Cinder has on her dress.

"Hey Enya, did you see Lynx or the rest of SWAG yet?"

"You know Lynx, he's outside with a bunch of girls as usual, I'm not surprised he didn't marry them all yet?"

"Just get him right now, this is important" Griffon made her point clear enough for his thick skull to hear it.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be back"

"So… where's Cinder?" Perdita asked her teammate if she knew.

Griffon thought about it until she realized, "I'm not sure, she didn't say."

She threw her arms into the air in a fit of rage, "And she tells us not to be late?"

"Her Perdita, I finally got him" Enya pulled his sleeves down, not wanting to go through to get his teammate away from those girls.

"Thank you Enya" The lavender haired man said, his long hair was covering his face, though he corrected his style.

"Don't mention it, now tell me Lynx, how do you get the girls after you like that?" Enya pointed over to the group of girls.

"If I knew, I would tell you" Lynx wanted to know why, he just kept his younger appearance much more noticeable, so that's all he knows.

"Ahem"

Both Enya and Lynx looked over to their leader, they knew they were about to get another lecture for being late, "Oh boy, here we go again."

"Why- "

"Before you say otherwise, let's just say we were here before the hostess arrives shall we?"

Perdita stopped and looked back to see a person appearing out of her ability of invisibility, "Hello Scarlet Shadowend."

The redheaded girl pulled out her large hula-hoop and spun it around, causing it to break into 3 large long ranged pistols with the blades underneath the barrels, "Don't call me by that name."

Perdita wasn't fazed when the girl held 2 pistols up to her throat, "Oh I'm sorry 'Serilda,' but I do agree."

Serilda put her blades away and smiled, "The rest of the guys should be here, they left before I did though…" she looked around and exited the building.

"Man, I'm still surprised she's our leader, such an airhead." One man walked into the lobby with semi-long black hair. He had his katana already in its sheath and put his hand through his hair.

"Walter Wraith, about time," Perdita said sarcastically.

"Yo! Wassup Ladies" they heard a voice say with many looking at him with disgust, he looked at them all, brought his robotic arm up and flipped them the finger, "Fine then."

"There's Aero," Serilda looked over to see the last one, "and there's Greyson over there."

The tall blonde guy looked over, waved at them and entered the building.

"Well the sins are here, what about Cinder?" Griffon said, with both PLGE and SWAG present, they would only have mission to work on, not have a long conservation with.

"So…"

"We should go to the meeting room" Perdita said already going upstairs to the large room.

One by one each of the sins came in and waited… and waited.

"I can't take this, it's too boring, I want some action!" Aero said as he slammed his robotic arm into the table, almost turning it into the weapon form.

"Oh this is getting interesting" A voice call out from behind them.

Serilda looked back to see a person they knew well, "Mercury Black, welcome."

Mercury smiled with the doors opening with Neo entering with Emerald, a hooded figure and finally Cinder.

"It's good to see everyone getting along just fine" Cinder smiled like normally would when she sees some potential of a fight happening.

"Getting along, yeah right, I can kick these guys out easily" Aero boasted, he knew he could win.

"I like your enthusiasm" Cinder walked over and waved her hand under his chin, making him look into her eyes, "but your arrogance will be your downfall."

"Whatever, so why did you call us in? Does it involve the Virtues?" Aero snapped back, "And who's this idiot wearing the hood, hey you- "

Neo didn't like his attitude, so she pulled his collar to make him stand, she spun around kicking his knee in and kicked him down onto the ground.

Aero grunted when he seen who did him in, "Damn mute…"

"Anyway, our plan got some… 'alterations' to the plan and this hooded one is the new edition and she will make sure our plans will go accordingly." Cinder presented their new member but she mainly had intentions of using her as an assassin.

"Wait, white skin?" Perdita examined the person and realized something, "Wait, does this mean the plan was a success?"

Cinder simply nodded, "Correct, and now we can enter phase 2, starting tonight."

Walter smiled, "About damn time for our vengeance."

"Mercury would do his part of the mission to alert the authorities while both Serilda and our new friend here to infiltrate the Virtues' Headquarters. The rest will stay around the mission area and make sure the plan runs… smoothly, understand?" Cinder looked at each sin and knew they would handle, "Dismissed."

Emerald looked around but noticed Neo walked out just as Cinder said, 'Dismissed.'

Looking around, she found the young girl sitting next to a wall in a fetal position with her face buried.

"Hey"

'…'

Emerald knew that she never spoke a word before, but she had to find a way to comfort her, "I'm sorry to what happened to Roman, but I'm sure he wanted you to keep on living the life you wanted, even if it's completing heists for a living. He may be annoying… but if he makes you happy, then I'm happy as well."

Neo stopped shaking and looked at Emerald, she could see how red her eyes were. Neo got up and hugged Emerald, catching her by surprise but she returned the hug, trying her best to comfort the mute girl.

Perdita looked at the hooded figure, noticing that the normal human skin looked bleached clean of all color and pigments but had dark veins run across it. She walked over to pick up its hand and noticed that it was cold to touch and the dark veins ran up past its arms, she could only imagine how this person felt during the initial phase.

The figure pulled its hand away and walked out, wanting to start the mission. Seeing she was only backup, she decided to stay back.

Serilda looked back, seeing both Mercury and the experiment were behind her, "Let's make history."

Mercury ran in an opposite direction while both Serilda and the experiment ran towards the Virtues' HQ. Serilda also activated her semblance to make her invisible for her part of the mission.

* * *

Dante looked at both teams entering at the same time, neither showed injuries so it looked like they completed their missions, "How did it go?"

"We told her the news" Jaune said, sitting down onto one of the chairs.

"We got the book!" Ruby pulled out the large ancient book.

Dante smiled to see the book, "Finally."

Sun opened the book and examined the contents, "What do we do next and how do we read this?"

"It was originally created centuries ago before Kingdoms were created, by the original Maidens, documenting their new powers. It was later known that the last surviving maiden was the Winter maiden, she taught the newer generation of Maidens when she found them. It continued on for generations with the last surviving maiden finding the others until this book was kept by an organization to keep the maidens a secret. They kept the power of these maidens and many others secret from the public, simply making everything too powerful into legends so no more people would hunt them down."

"So why did our academy have this?" Sun heard from before that the same book exist in Vale and the other kingdoms.

"Someone handwritten the copies when they had their hands on the original, but there's also a legend not many know. The original book disappeared, all was left were the copies and only 4 copies survived the passage of time, but these copies aren't complete, many documents were never written down, never making to people's eyes."

"So what does this book have besides the facts of the Maidens?"

"There's something about their limits to their powers, from this passage here-" he paused, hearing footsteps nearby, but didn't see anything, "they cannot exceed their limit. They will have weaker attacks and they will try to retreat until they're rested."

"What's our main objective, since we have information with the Maidens, are we going to war with Cinder?" Jaune asked, wanting to find her and end her reign.

Dante nodded, "We are, but it's more like a revolutionary. We will push them back to another area and we could finish them there, we don't want any civilians killed because of our actions, we'll take them back to the Dragon Isle."

"The Dragon Isle?" Sun exclaimed, knowing the history, "the battleground of the great war?"

"The Isle was used as a reminder of what war takes from us, but there's something on the island, someone or something controlling the Grimm there, we don't know how or why but our scouts found evidence of Grimm doing bizarre things like moving wreckage." A huntsmen pull out her scroll and placed it on the table, revealing their findings of these large major class Grimm carrying packages.

"We found some intelligence that a maiden could have the power to control a Grimm dragon, Ruby, did the dragon stay close to the tower?"

Ruby thought about it and realized that he was right, "Yeah, it flew close to it, not caring about the city at all."

"From our reports on the war, the largest of dragons flew to the battlefield, claiming even more lives of our soldiers. They ended the war, making our men fight together. Now, long after the war, the dragons outside the Dragon Isles are only younger dragons. Only the craziest would travel to the Isles."

"Younger dragon, so how dangerous are these dragons?" Ren was curious, he only seen how large that dragon that attacked Beacon.

"It's hard to say, now many are large anymore, but they are very unpredictable, never face one right away, find out its weakness and exploit it immediately."

"What about Cinder, if she could control these dragons, what are we gonna do with her and her comrades?"

"That's where we will unleash our plan, the Virtues will get the attention of the Sins and distract them when teams JRRN and SSSN will infiltrate the main corporation where Cinder's being held at right now. Once she will unleash her attack, I already contacted Ironwood and he's willing to aid us with his fleet. Her forces will crumble under once we take her down-"

"Oooooh, nice thing I got here before its too late" A voice call out from behind the general.

"What" Dante looked back to see someone he knew too well.

Ruby searched to see a woman faze from invisible to visible to the eye, she pulled back her arm and thrusted it towards Dante's back.

"Argh" Dante froze, he felt something hit him from the back.

All of the Huntsmen around the group jumped up from their seats and tried to capture the assailant.

"Scar-I mean Serilda?" Sophia call out, knowing who she was.

Serilda looked back and noticed the girl with black hair and white tips, "Silver?"

"Capture her" One huntsmen said using his rope to tie her up.

Serilda smiled, pointing her weapon and shot him in the face, "Nice try boys," she stood on the table and ran out of the room and upstairs to hopefully get out.

"Let's go" Jaune said, grabbing onto Ruby's arm.

Ruby was looking at the injured general, not wanting another person dying on her, "Ok."

Sophia was the only person in the room, she ran up to Dante, trying to heal his wound, "Don't worry papa, I got this."

Dante grabbed her hands, shaking his head, "Don't she got me in a vital spot."

Sophia looked her papa with watery eyes, "Don't say that, you're gonna make it."

The general looked at his daughter, "Silver, promise me something…"

"What is it?"

Dante started coughing, "Promise me that you can save your sister Scarlet, she's still good."

Sophia nodded, pulling out he medical supplies, "I will."

* * *

Ruby and Jaune ran up where Serilda was last seen, the roof.

Jaune scouted around, figuring out where she might've gone to, he seen something make the dust move, "She's over there!"

Ruby spun around, using Crescent Rose, she fired it in the general direction, only leaving someone deflecting the shots.

"Damn, you're good at this" Serilda reappeared with a smiled on her face.

Ruby used her semblance to get close to her and attacked her with the scythe.

Serilda tried her best to dodge the hits but Ruby was fueled with anger, making her go faster and faster by the second.

"Help!" Serilda called out in a desperate attempt to get out.

Ruby didn't see it but a person jumped down from the next building and landed in between them, blocked the blade with its bare white hands.

Ruby stopped and seen who stopped her, a person wearing a dark crimson cloak, with pure white hands holding onto the blade of her Crescent Rose, "What are you?"

The figure didn't say anything pulled her closer to it and it kicked her back to Jaune.

Jaune looked at both assailants and noticed that something was off, the hooded figure used a kick that looked too familiar, "Ruby, take the one who hurt the general, I got this person."

Ruby didn't question what Jaune, he sounded confident.

Jaune walked up to the figure, with it reacting by tilting its head at him. It didn't know how to respond to squaring off.

Jaune brought out his sword and swung it around, seeing how it dodged her attacks and it countered with a kick, though Jaune used his shield to block it.

'Can it be?' Jaune thought about it, this person has the same fighting style as her…

He remembered how she fought in the past and waited for the opportunity, when she tried to hit his shield, trying to remove his defense. He countered by moving out of the way, and he used his foot to make the person off balance by kicking the foot carrying the most weight.

He felt accomplished by seeing the person fell onto the ground but once it got up from the ground, he seen the color of the hooded one, long bright red hair fell out of the hood, he froze looking at the person, "Pyrrha?"

The figure didn't respond but kicked him in the shin and punched him in the face, knocking him down for a while.

Ruby was focusing on Serilda until she heard Jaune fell down, she looked back to her opponent and noticed that she disappeared.

The hooded person looked over Jaune, it knelt down, having a better look at his face. She had her hand over his throat, ready to end him but something prevented her from doing it. Instead it got back up and left the scene.

"Jaune" Ruby ran over to Jaune's body until she heard 2 helicarriers flew over the building.

"Ruby Rose and Jaune Arc, you are under arrest for high treason!" The person on the comms said towards the 2.

"What?" Ruby watched as soldiers jumped off of the choppers and had their weapons aimed at them. She looked up to see a familiar face that she didn't want to see, "Mercury."


	8. News Spreads Fast

**RWBY Light of Hope Chapter 8**

 **A/N: _I am loving writing this story for you guys. I want to hear from you guys, how is this story, is it good? Bad? I didn't get any reviews, I know I sound like someone who wants to be popular but no, I want to see if I could improve on anything, writing structure of the story anything. Critics are now going to be accepted in any way possible._**

 _ **Truthfully, I am not an English major or anything close, I am an engineer student in my 3** **rd** **year in college, so math comes naturally not knowing how to write is a challenge for me. I studied on how to write by reading other people who submitted stories on this site, and went from there.**_

 ** _Thanks for reading guys, it means a lot. I do not plan on stopping on the story ideas, I'm still new-ish so it'll be one story at a time._**

* * *

Glynda scouted around Beacon once again, checking to make sure it was still safe from Grimm. She knew that there wasn't much Grimm anymore since the Atlasian Military eliminate majority of the creatures, some still lurked in the darkness, waiting for prey to not pay attention.

"Good," Glynda heard airships fly over the school with many other soldiers and huntsmen to eliminate more Grimm so they could establish the CCT and bring back communications among nations once again.

Many Huntsmen were returning back to the helipads so they can go back and heal up for the next assignment.

She seen the ships land with additional hunters and robots, it wasn't as much as last time, since they knew the Grimm numbers were declining since the invasion. The toughest were all eliminated, the majors and alphas took a toll on their forces but they still won this battle to reclaim the school.

"Tai" Glynda noticed one from the bunch, being Ruby and Yang's father.

The blonde huntsman looked to who said his name, to his joy he was happy to see her once again, "Glynda?"

Glynda smiled at him, "Its good to see you again."

Tai would've said the same, but he noticed how worn out she was. Her clothes were starting to tear, and her expression was showing how stressful removing the Grimm was, "You should get some rest, the rest of the huntsmen could handle them."

"I'm fine, I just need to go back and find-" she began to walk away but stumbled.

Tai tried to catch her, "You sure you're all right."

She simply brushed him away, "I'm fine, its just that… we didn't find Ozpin anywhere yet, besides we're almost getting the CCT back up and running again. You should go check to see if it is."

Tai nodded, he wanted to see if he could contact Ruby, "Right."

* * *

Tai stopped when he made it to the large tower, he ran in and went up to the communications array. He turned it on and pressed the numbers for one scroll he knew that knows what happens.

"Hello?" A familiar voice answered on the other end.

"Qrow, this is Tai."

Qrow froze up, not wanting to hear from him, not now of all times, "Tai listen, things are getting more problematic by the minute, I'll call you back."

"How's Ruby?"

"Listen Tai…"

"What happened?" Tai was suspicious of the emotion he's currently hearing from his teammates' voice.

Sighing, Qrow had to tell him, "She was arrested last night, she's being accused for the murder of 2 Faunus' last night."

"WHAT? How did you let her?" Tai was furious that the one person he trusted the most had failed him by letting this happen to his daughter.

"I was finding intel on the enemy, when I found out about the attack, I was too late. When I got there, her friends told me what happened, both her and Jaune Arc were being held in their cells, waiting for their court hearings."

"We should get them out now, I'm coming over" Tai pressed the end call button and immediately ended the call.

Qrow grunted, "Damn, I should've been watching her, but he doesn't know the situation here," he looked over to the city from a cliff outside of the city and seen how Atlas soldiers were now coming into Mistral, "and now its much worse."

He pulled out his scroll and sent a message to someone he knew was still in Vale and could help them, "I hope she'll comply this time," he pressed the send button sighing, "I don't want another of our family to be gone."

* * *

Over in Vale, a raven was flying over the wrecked school, making circles where Grimm were still alive. The huntsmen around seen the bird making circles over the enemies and they eliminated the Grimm. They waved, thanking the bird for the assistance. Quickly the bird left the area and landed on top of a dorm of sorts.

It looked around making sure no one was around, it walked behind something large and a woman walked out the other side, revealing to be Raven. She pulled out her Scroll and seen a message was unread. She checked on it and she didn't like it, "I don't think that's a good idea."

She quickly left a message to Qrow, declining the offer of helping them right now, "I don't want any of you to die right now."

Her scroll buzzed again, seeing the message, 'Is it because of Summer?'

She bit her lip, not wanting to remember the incident that claimed her friend's life. She closed her scroll, with the onslaught of memories of that mission, a normal Grimm invasion on a small village but quickly turned for the worse when a new species attacked them, with Raven leaving the battle with multiple injuries but carried Summer's lifeless body out.

She quickly snapped out of her memories, she didn't want to re-live them again. Hearing some tapping noises, she came back to her senses to see a person running on the roof of a nearby dorm. She had a closer look to see a Cat Faunus, with long black hair and a black outfit.

"Is that her?" Raven pulled out her scroll to see a picture of team RWBY, and that girl looks exactly like their teammate Blake Belladonna. It looked like she was limping, but what happened to her?

Blake stopped and jumped downwards to an open window, and she shut it behind her.

Thinking of an idea, she jumped down from the top of the large building and landed onto the ground below. She casually walked over to the building and entered, only seeing the wreckage the Grimm did and the students and faculty destroying the Grimm, leaving the walls and floors riddled with damages. The floors with holes, rugs ripped apart and blood.

She seen how Grimm mauled people, killing them quickly and fed on the corpses on her journeys, something she can't unsee. Luckily there were no bodies nearby but a few places where she could imagine students trying to save themselves when the Grimm were invading.

Checking the rooms for anything, she spotted the body of a Vale student, female by the looks of it, clothes ripped by claws. She felt bad but she was on a mission first, "I'm sorry…"

She ran up to the 5th floor, remembering where the cat girl landed. Despite some detours and minor Grimm, she seen a normal white door in front of her. Thinking of the possible circumstances, she raised her hand and lightly knocked on the door.

She heard footsteps slightly making its way to the door, stopping and said, "Who is this?"

Raven paused for a second but knew she had to do this for Yang, "Blake Belladonna?"

"Yang?" The cat Faunus quickly unlatched the door of its locks and opened it, hoping to apologize to her friend, only to see a slightly older version of her, wearing a completely different outfit and her hair was coal black with red eyes.

"Who are you? You're not Yang?" Blake studies the female in front of her, question her motives.

Raven had a good look at the young cat girl, seeing she was extremely tired, possibly from fighting the Grimm in this area. Her arms were covered in bandages; many were red with blood seeping out of the coverings. Her eyes were dark, from the lack of sleep had taken its toll on her, not functioning fully.

Raven smiled at the girl, "I'm here to bring you back to your friends."

* * *

Tai looked at his house in anger, how could the person he trusted the most let his daughter be seen as a criminal?

"I can't believe that guy, for how much I went through to make sure he's all right."

He opened the door and slammed it shut.

"Something wrong dad?" He heard someone call out, knowing who it was.

"No, something happened to Ruby…" Tai said, without trying to sound angry, though he sounded really disappointed.

Yang got out of her bed and ran out of her room, "What happened? Is she all right?"

Tai grabbed a nearby chair and sat down, shaking his head, "I don't know, we managed to get the CCT back up and running. I got to call Qrow earlier this morning, I asked him what happened over in Mistral."

Yang was listening, but she wondered what this has to do with her little sis, "And?"

"He told me that she, along with a guy named Jaune Arc were captured by the authorities there, with the evidence saying they both murdered 2 Faunus' last night. They were fighting their best officers until more arrived and subdued them, awaiting their trials right now."

Yang brushed her hair, wondering why would Ruby do that, "That doesn't sound right, she would never do that, and Jaune would never harm another person like that."

Tai got up and walked into his bedroom, getting some supplies, "Dad, what are you doing?"

"I'm gonna get her back, even if it means to fight the authorities. I'll be back in a few weeks."

Yang stepped in front of him, "Then take me with you, I can fight."

Tai placed his hand on her shoulder, "I don't want to lose another family member again, you will stay here and protect the house while I'm away."

Yang thought about it but knew he was right, "…Ok"

Tai quickly ran out of the house and towards his destination, Mistral.

Yang walked back into her room and threw herself back onto the bed, not wanting to think about her disabilities again, "What do I do now?"

"You could go help Ruby?" She heard a voice from outside her window.

She snapped her head towards that direction, got up from her bed and quickly opened the window, revealing that a person was outside, someone she thought ran away.

"Hey" Blake waved at the blonde huntress.

Yang was secretly happy to see her partner once again, but she also felt a different set of emotions of betrayal, "What are you doing here?"

Blake looked back and said, "Yang, I'm sorry for everything, I was stupid for running away, thinking that would help me with this situation. The reason why I came back was the news of what happened."

Yang knew that she was right, they had to find a way to save her sis, "Come in, it must be cold."

Blake sort of felt a sigh of relief set in, but she was too busy trying to hide her shivering, though it was a losing battle. She happily jumped into the warm house, not like the dorms.

Blake looked at her friend, realizing how hurt she was, "Oh my gosh, what happened to you?"

Blake looked at herself, seeing her main outfit was heavily damaged, leaving deep gashes on her flesh, "I stayed at the dorms after the incident, the Grimm were a real problem there. I had to fight almost every day in order to survive, there was a few students who stayed as well, but most were too injured that they passed away."

Yang felt sad to hear that, "I'm sorry for asking."

Blake quickly shook her head, "Don't worry about it."

The blondie quickly got up and ran towards the first aid kit, "It looks like you need some fixing up?"

Blake smiled, "Yeah…"

Yang also pulled out some extra clothes that might fit her friend, "That you may need to change out of that as well," she made a devious smile, examining Blake fully.

Blake had her eyes wide open, "Uh Yang, what are you doing?"

Yang threw her the clothes, "Oh nothing…"

The cat girl wondered what she may have planned but quickly changed clothes.

-DING-DONG-

"Oh who's that?" Yang walked out of her room and towards the door. Opening the door, she was surprised to see who it was, Weiss Schnee.

"Weiss?"

"Hello, may I come in?" Weiss asked nicely.

"Yeah, come on in"

Blake walked out of the room wearing the clothes Yang gave her, to see one more of the team, "Hey Weiss."

Weiss looked at Yang but noticed one major difference the last time they met, "Yang, what happened to your hair?"

Blake also nodded, "I didn't want to be rude, but what happened?"

Yang looked at both of them and smiled, "I thought that this would be a good change you know, I don't know what to do since I lost to Adam…"

"Oh and… am I interrupting anything here?" Weiss asked, seeing Blake in Yang's clothes.

Blake looked down and instantly blushed, "No, nothing happened like that."

Yang simply answered, "Yeah, you missed out on a lot Weiss" with Blake hitting Yang on the head.

Weiss looked at the both of them but didn't care, "It doesn't matter, but I came her for you Yang. I came to take you with me in Atlas for something important."

Yang didn't know what she had planned, "Ok… what is it?"

"I don't want to ruin the surprise, come on the both of you" she quickly opened the door and motioned them to follow her to the limousine outside.

Blake shrugged, "We won't know until we try it?"

Yang smiled, knowing what the snow princess has planned, it has to be good, "Coming!" She closed the door behind her and locked it, leaving a message for if Tai gets back early.

Yang got inside the limo, with the trio going to the airport, and begins their journey for Yang's recovery.

* * *

 **A/N: _And thanks for reading another chapter. Most of my time would be playing on PS4, currently playing Dark Souls 3. I love this game so much, I would go back and help anyone with tough bosses, not pvp, I am not good with that:(_**


	9. Are You Not Entertained?

_**Light of Hope Chapter 9**_

 **A/N: I had so many different plans when making this chapter but never felt right, I hope you guys like this. Please leave a review if you liked it or hated it, enjoy.**

* * *

"Let's go!" A female officer said, pulling the red-hooded girl out of her cell and dragged her to a different place. Without any resistance, the girl followed the officer. The girl was hearing the cries and pleas of the other inmates being kept, she didn't want to look, she just looked ahead to the large metal door at the end of the corridor.

Once they reached a large door, she looked towards another officer behind a large glass and the doors in front of them opened. What caught the girl by surprise was the blinding light, she fell to her knees and tried to block the sun.

"Come on!" the officer shouted, pulling the girl harder. She walked out into the center of the arena and threw her down onto the ground.

The girl looked around, adjusting her vision, but she noticed that there was someone in front of her. "Hey…" her voice was raspy, because she didn't have much water since she was captured.

More and more, her vision was getting better, noticing the details of the person, "Jaune?"

"Hey Jaune, everything ok?" Ruby managed to get up to her feet and stumbled over the collapsed blonde teen. She laid her hand on his shoulder, not reacting to her touch, so she slightly nudged him, hoping that would be enough.

Jaune slightly stirred awake, though he was groggy, "What…?"

Ruby looked down to see that her arms were restraint, similar to her partner laying down beside her. Sighing, she had tried her best to get out but each attempt were shattered. What she hated was that her favorite weapon was taken away when she was taken to her cell.

She laid her head down in shame, remembering the events…

* * *

A large group of police officers were closing in on the 4 that were fighting, all being led by Mercury for showing them where the people responsible was, "FREEZE!"

The 4 stopped what they were doing and seen the large numbers of officers surrounding them, half were the robotic forces with their weapons already aiming at them.

"Ruby Rose and Jaune Arc," one called out to them, "you two will be coming with us, you are under arrest."

"What why!" Ruby watched the police aimed their weapons at the both of them, with the people they fought against walked towards the police and they didn't notice that they were at fault.

"For the conspiracy of assassination and the murders of 2 citizens," One officer grabbed her by the shoulder and knocked her down, pulled out a pair of handcuffs and cuffed her.

"What are you doing! We were trying to help our friends, those 2 over there killed someone downstairs, go check!" Ruby pointed to the building where the incident occurred.

One officer looked over and laughed, "Yeah right, why should we help you?"

Serilda and the hooded person walked over to Mercury, "Thanks for helping Mercury."

Mercury shrugged, "I already finished my part, all that was holding us back was you two messing around."

The blood red haired girl glared at him, "You know I couldn't outrun her, she caught up to us too fast, how was that possible?"

Mercury walked away from the 2, "Cinder wants you two to report back, she wanted to know if you already finished your part? And you…" He pointed over to the hooded figure.

The person pointed at itself, wanting to know if he was talking to her…

He made his hand move and show a thumb's up, "Good job on supporting on our clumsy teammate."

Serilda walked over and slugged him in the shoulder, "I swear…"

Mercury watched the girl jumped off the building, smiling he looked at the female standing there, he motioned her over to him. She did and he leaned in to say, "Cinder changed the plan, go to stage 4 of the plan right away, phase 3 was discarded, kill Jaune and Ruby right away…" he pulled out a short spear like sword and small shield for her to use.

She grabbed both weapons and quickly ran towards a different direction, waiting for the right moment.

* * *

Jaune looked at his hands, bound in handcuffs and no weapons for them, "What should we do now Ruby? We don't have any weapons."

She looked up at the person watching, a high class officer of the Atlasian army. He was commanding the sector over Mistral since the war with the White Fang occurred in Vale.

"Who are these two ma'am?" He looked back to his advisor, Emerald.

"Nothing but 2 traitors of this nation sir" Emerald had this man under her complete control, she simply used her semblance to make the man think that these 2 were members of the White Fang.

"Well, release the Grimm on them, this nation doesn't need any more traitors like them."

A guard nearby heard his orders, "Yes sir," he walked over to pull on a level to open the gates.

Emerald smiled, she never liked how Ruby always smiles, even if it was all depressing.

* * *

Ruby looked over to see 2 swords on the ground and a pair of keys. Quickly she grabbed the keys and undid the locks on her. She heard the click that she wanted to hear, and she got the shackles off of her.

She ran over to Jaune and used the key to unlock her friend.

Jaune felt relieved to feel free, "Thank Ruby."

"We should be getting ready" Ruby grabbed both swords and handed one to Jaune.

"Thanks" Jaune swung it around, it was like his but it was shaped differently and weight a bit more.

The growls of the Grimm were getting louder when the doors started to open. The duo instantly knew that this place was more like a coliseum, but where was the crowd? Ruby looked around but seen that it was a private place, it didn't have a large number of seats.

Ruby looked over at the gate and seen the smaller Grimm got out, mainly Beowolves and Creeps running through, eager to attack any person in front of them. Both the young hunters prepped for a tough battle.

"AAAARRGGGGHHH"

* * *

"Hey move this crate over there!" A crew member yelled another to move this package.

"I'm on it" he used the forklift to move it, once he was done, both he and the other co-worker were done, "Hey, want to get something to eat?"

The worker nodded, "Yeah, where should we eat?"

Suddenly the crate that was recently moved, had one of the sides broken off without alerting the two men. From inside, a girl walked out of the crate, eager for something. He ice-cream colored hair was messy, though she didn't care. She looked over to find an Atlesian soldier walking towards the sound.

She walked over and hid behind one of the unharmed crates. She waited until the soldier was close, and she made her move, a quick punch and kick to the head knocked the female soldier out cold.

Quickly moving the target into the container, she removed the clothing and wore the clothes, and to her amazement, it fit a little too big but not bad. She pulled out her scroll and took a pic of the female's face and using her ability, she changed her appearance to match her.

She continued to march towards somewhere within the battleship owned by the Atlesian Military. Thinking back on what Cinder ordered her, he main objective was to destroy this ship like what she did back in Vale but without her saving Roman.

She clenched her teeth, without Roman around, she fell into a depression. She did have feelings for the madman but since she couldn't speak, she didn't tell him. She was still holding a grudge at both herself for making the mistake of underestimating the enemy and at Ruby for killing Roman. She was making all sorts of plans to torture 'Little Red' and kill her in the end.

She thought back at the conversation with Cinder…

"Neo, I want you to infiltrate that Atlesian ship, make your way by any means and take it down. Without the military to aid them, we could outrun this city like what happened to Vale." Cinder was planning everything like she did for Vale.

Neo smiled and simply nodded, wanting to help her in anyway.

"Yeah, but you won't have Roman there with you" Athanasia said in a mean way, wanting her to think about him.

Neo instantly lost her smile and looked sad.

"Aero, stop that" Emerald told him to stop, or she might have to make him.

Aero laughed, "Really? And what would you do if I don't?" He got closer towards her and wanted to see what she has.

Emerald simply glared at him, pulled her arm back and swung at him, knocking him off of his chair. The brown-haired male chuckled, he didn't think she would do that, "Man, you got me there, I'll stop for now. If you'll excuse me…" he walked out of the room and made sure that it never happened.

Cinder walked over and placed a hand on Neo, "Finish this mission for Roman, the plan depends on this."

Neo felt better, Cinder never felt bad for a teammate before, she couldn't let her down.

Walking towards the bridge, she walked past the guards patrolling the ship, unbeknown to them, there was a spy within their ranks.

"So did you hear about those two that were just caught a few nights ago?" One guard said to another when she overheard them.

She crept closer, "No, who were they?"

"They were being accused for murdering two of the citizens, both being Faunus'."

One was shocked to hear about this, "Who are they?"

"I don't know about their names but one had a red hoodie one her and the other was some blonde kid."

Neo walked away from the duo, she remembered the fun both she and Roman had before Red let him get eaten by a Grimm. Her expression was that she was furious, but she didn't want to kill her… yet. She has a few plans before she use her weapon on her, maybe some torture and hear her scream.

She smiled at those plans and upon entering the top portion of the ship, she pulled out her scroll and had it hack the door to open.

One officer looked at her when the doors were open, "What are you… wait who are you?"

Neo smiled, seeing him pull out his weapon and aimed at her.

* * *

"Ruby get down" Jaune swung his sword to hit a Creep that was getting to close to his partner. The Creep was hurt from the initial swing but was mad at him, it turned its direction to him and jumped at him.

Ruby noticed her friend was in distress, so she used her semblance to get closer and stab the grim in the head, killing it instantly.

"How are we gonna defeat them all?" Jaune looked around them, the two of them had to fight an endless amount of Grimm. To make matters worse, the people who captured them decided to release more when the numbers were getting low, making the young hunters tired from fatigue.

"I don't know, all we can do now is to keep on fighting" Ruby charged in to attack a nearby Beowulf but the ones brought in were much tougher with Majors appearing among the ranks.

She was knocked back with the blade broken off by the claws of the Beowulf. Luckily she was caught by Jaune.

She looked up to see the Atlesian Ship above them, but something was wrong with it. There was smoke emitting out of the ship and small explosions could be heard from where they were standing.

"What's going on," the commander asked Emerald for any updates, though the girl didn't reply right away. She walked over to him and placed her hands close to his head, since her semblance was illusions, the closer she got, the more powerful her power was.

"Sh-sh, please stay calm commander" she lowered her hand to pull out a dagger and had it close to his throat.

The commander didn't reply, as though he wasn't seeing anything wrong.

Emerald frowned at what she had to do next, she lowered her hand containing the dagger and dropped it to the ground. She couldn't get herself to end this man's life, she thought about it and knew she would get in trouble if she doesn't get this done.

-Click-

She stood back up with her weapons out, ready for an attack.

"Woah, it's just me Emerald" Mercury said raising his hands.

Emerald put her weapons away and walked up to him, "What are you doing here? I didn't ask for backup?"

Mercury shook his head, "I knew you wouldn't kill this man, I seen how you had the perfect chance but you messed it up."

"I don't know what you're talking about" Emerald picked the knife back up and showed him, "I have the perfect opportunity right now."

The male leaned in and said, "Then do it."

Emerald looked back at the man but looked away.

"See, I knew you wouldn't," he pulled her hand up and took the knife out, "that's the reason why I came here right away." He slammed the knife into the unsuspecting man, blood was running out of the wound placed on the side of the neck.

Mercury was happy seeing this guy die by his hands, but Emerald sort of felt sick to her stomach seeing this.

"Come on, Neo just finished her portion. And release all of the Grimm out and into the city, Cinder updated the orders," Mercury picked up the body and threw it outside to Ruby, a message to show now to mess with them.

Ruby seen him standing there when he threw the body down, he simply waved at her when she glared at him.

Reluctantly, she knew she had to follow direct orders, she went and pressed the buttons to release the Grimm deep within the vaults. The guards weren't ready for this either, so they must be the first to die.

Pressing the buttons to release them and the gates leading outside, she felt guilty for killing a lot of innocent people, "I'm… so sorry."

The growls of Grimm echoed out of the dungeons deep below and the death screams of many people.

Ruby seen both of her enemies exit the room, while she seen people getting out of the dungeon with Grimm close behind them. Many weren't lucky with them falling to the endless onslaught of Grimm, dying by their teeth and claws.

Both Ruby and Jaune watch in horror with their jailers being torn apart. They knew they couldn't do much, what caught them by surprise was a guard running towards them with two weapons in hand, he was carrying both Crescent Rose and Crocea Mors. He was brutally injured but with his last strength, he threw them to the people they held captive with the Grimm grabbing him and pulling him back into the dungeon.

Both hunters grabbed their weapons and were ready for one hell of a match, they had to fight the Grimm here, many were running past them and into the open gates behind them leading into the city. They were charging into the large mass of Grimm, not making dents into their numbers.

"It's no use" Ruby stopped, she noticed something was wrong, the Grimm stopped noticing them all of a sudden.

"What's going on?" Jaune walked up to a Grimm and touched its face, with it growling at him, causing him to back up.

With some footsteps behind them, they looked back to see the girl in the cloak, "Who are you," she looked at it's arms, she had one hand up, probably telling the Grimm not to attack them.

"Are you controlling these Grimm?" Jaune noticed that they were being surrounded by these creatures, but they're not attacking, not natural for the Creatures of Grimm.

The cloaked female simply nodding, pulling out its sword and shield and prepped for battle.

Jaune looked at the fighting stance and noticed something, "Wait, Pyrrha?"

The girl went and pulled off the hood, revealing herself to be their fallen teammate and friend, Pyrrha Nikos. She had snow white skin with black colored veins all around her, luckily her eye and hair color looked the same.

* * *

Neo was walking out of the ship, happy that she finished her mission, the command center was destroyed. Many of the guards weren't even tough for her, she took them down easily and set this ship straight down.

Seeing an empty ship, she got in, started it up and went on her merry way, wanting to find Ruby right away.

Outside of the kingdom of Mistral, a small party of people were traveling to the city. The entire group mainly were Faunus, one dressed in black with a red Rose symbol on his back and the rest were wearing white.

"What's going on?" Adam looked up to the sky, seeing the ship making its descent with one ship leaving it.

"Sir, you think it's her?" One lieutenant asked.

"More then likely" Adam leaned onto one of the trees, seeing a huge number of Grimm already inside the kingdom.

"Grimm? How did they get inside?" One asked, "Should we do something?"

Adam waved it off, "Not this time, we already helped her once, that's good enough."

* * *

Cinder smiled seeing the destruction Neo caused, "Good work Neo and I see Grimm were let loose, just as planned. There's one other loose end to tie up," she looked back to see her 2 teams of followers, "Teams PLGE and SWAG, there will be one more mission for you eight."

All the members saluted to her like soldiers do to their commanders, "What's our mission ma'am?"

"Now that everything was set, its time for you to end your old comrades by tonight, and burn everything they cherish, that is all."

The 2 teams nodded and ran out, knowing that this will mean the end of their turmoil with the Virtues. Once they were all friends but now enemies, and now they knew only one side will survive and the other will die to their hands.

She walked over to a chair and pulled a glass filled with a drink, smiling, "All's according to plan, now let's see what's the outcome."


	10. Sunken Ship Surfaced

**Light of Hope Chapter 10 'Sunken Ship Surfaced'**

 **A/N: This one will be dedicated to all of the fans for Pyrrha, since she was struck by the arrow cast by Cinder in the end of Volume 3, there was many speculations and mini battles to say she actually lived or not. I have a feeling that she was teleported, the ending of volume 3 was weird, when she was struck by the arrow in the chest, it was slightly glowing, what was that and what did Cinder do to make her turn to ashes? It looked like she was teleported, possibly by accident, but this is just a theory.**

* * *

"I'm sorry Sophia, I must be a terrible leader" Ciel was mad at himself for letting this happen, he could've done much more but now he feels like a failure.

Sophia nudged closer to her friend, placing hand on his shoulder, "It's ok, you don't have to beat yourself up for me, it was my sister who did this. She's the one to blame and her leader Cinder."

"Uh guys, you should check this out" Han said, wanting everyone available to see.

Ciel walked over to see something he dreaded to see, "Oh no…"

Amethyst looked over, hearing her leader's voice, she knew, "What is it, enemies?"

Ciel never moved but said, "The Sins are here…"

"I guess it's time to finally end this" Sophia got up and retrieved her mace, "Ren, Nora, go find your friends."

Ren knew something's up, normally they don't want to fight but suddenly now, "Is it ok to leave you guys…"

Ciel interrupted him, "Yes, all of us knew this day was coming, with the onslaught of Grimm appearing, the military and huntsmen are having their hands full eliminating them. I'm pretty sure your friends are in the center of it right now, go find them, we'll follow once we finish this."

Both Nora and Ren looked at each other, not wanting to do this but had to follow the huntsmen into battle, "Good luck guys."

Both Ren and Nora ran out of the building, seeing the people who caused their friends a lot of trouble. The sins weren't paying attention to the people running past them, instead they were patient.

Ren looked at each one and noticed that they each were ready for one more attack, ready to see who would be die. He also noticed one was sort of sad, the one who infiltrated and killed her own father, the circle bladed leader of Swag, Serilda, 'What's going on?'

Ciel smiled, knowing they were the last ones in the building, "Well this is it, one last match."

The other seven nodded in agreement, "Let's go."

With each member walking out of the building, they were facing each other, Ciel waved towards an old friend that betrayed him, Enya Erebus "Its good to see you once again."

Enya simply glared at him, he tried to kill him when he was weak last time, "This time I won't miss."

Ciel looked over to his friends new and old, enemies and comrades, and smiled, "Let's go!" He ran towards Enya with his hatchets, one switched into his gun and fired ice dust at him.

Enya ran to the side, missing most of the shots and used his twin swords to block the close bullets. Looking up, he seen his target making a downwards attack with both hatchets, with no option left, he brought his one blade up in hopes to defend himself…

* * *

"…Jaune…fight…me…" the person looking like Pyrrha said in a different tone that doesn't sound like her, her voice wasn't sounding like her nice sweet voice, instead she sounded menacing. She brought her main spear up in the direction towards Jaune, only wanting him for some reason.

Jaune looked down onto his weapon and planned out the possible options, since he was not very good in battle, he prepared himself with tactics in hopes to outsmart the enemy. Pulling his weapon up like he would do in a duel, he accepted her challenge.

Ruby watched her teammate walked past her and towards the enemy, "Jaune wait-" she stopped because of the Grimm around her attacked when she got too close. Looking at the person, she had her hand up towards her, possibly warning her.

"…Only…Jaune…and…I…will…fight…" Her eyes were colored abnormally, with the white parts surrounding her emerald colored eyes were black in color and her iris' glowed green.

"Ruby, find Cinder, I'll handle Pyrrha. Put an end to her schemes." Jaune looked around to see the Grimm were complying to this person, but why did Pyrrha came back at all times and why were her skin, no scratch that, why did everything about her changed. Her pale skin was changed to snowy white with black veins across her skin. Her red hair was the only closest thing she kept, but it was matted up and not in its signature ponytail that she always kept.

"What did Cinder do to you?" Jaune asked getting closer to her, with her not reacting yet.

With no options left, Ruby ran past Jaune and Pyrrha and into the large exit doors, along with the Grimm. What caught her by surprise was that the Grimm were making a way for little red, she looked back to see her old friend commanded the Grimm to keep their distance.

'How is she doing this?' Ruby thought to herself while she was using her semblance to find Cinder, the one who did so much damage.

* * *

Ruby was running past the carnage around her, she never expected how a large building kept this many Grimm, but that didn't matter right now, she had to find them.

She remembered the conservation with the Virtues during the meeting, Cinder was located in the CCT of Mistral. Luckily the tower wasn't far, a few blocks away. The problem would be the Grimm, the soldiers and huntsmen/huntresses were keeping most of the Grimm occupied but some were getting past them since the main ship controlling the Knights and Paladins went down moments ago.

Running past everything, she seen the large tower in sight, she did eliminate a few Grimm before any civilians were hurt, "GO!" she yelled firing some rounds into the closest Grimm.

Seeing the area was clear, she darted over to the building, until she seen 2 people standing in front of her, 2 people she thought she knew but found out their true objectives. Glaring at the duo, she had her Crescent Rose armed and ready for a fight.

Mercury was thrilled to see that Cinder was right, "About time Red," he had one leg ready to strike with Emerald readying her weapons.

Using her semblance, she got past Mercury and attempted to attack the other, raising her blade, she brought it down onto the opponent's head. What caught her by surprise would be Emerald's semblance was already in use, she only hit the body for it to disappear.

With a kick to the gut, Ruby was knocked back to the wall, "You'll never make it to Cinder."

* * *

"ARGH!" An Atlesian Soldier said while a sharp object was thrusted into his chest, killing the man.

The one responsible pulled the weapon out of the soldier and ran towards the others that were nearby, since she already finished her mission, Neo thought it would help if there was a lesser amount of soldiers. With the hatred of both Atlas and Ruby still burning brightly within, she happily ran towards the large group led by a huntsman.

The huntsman knew what she was, "Soldiers continue fighting the Grimm, I'll handle her," pulling out his weapon, a large 2 handed broadsword. He swung the weapon towards her, though she easily dodged the initial blow by landing onto the blade with her hand, swung her body around and performed an upper kick to his face.

Stumbling back a few steps, he knew that she will be tough to fight. Planning out his attack, the huntsman twisted the hilt of the blade to have it expand in shape, pulling out a red crystal and placing it into the open crevasses of the blade and it closed up. The blade had flames emitting out of the blade.

Neo didn't let up in her attacks as well, so they both exchanged blows until they heard a few shots fired onto the soldiers, exploding around them, killing them all.

The huntsman looked back, demanding to know who did this but Neo froze, that gunfire sounded awfully familiar.

"Guess I'm a little late to the party?" A male voice called out from on top of a building nearby.

Looking up the huntsman was shocked to see him back, "ROMAN?"

"It's good to be back!" Roman brought both of his arms up, acting like nothing happened.

Neo was the one who didn't know how to react right now, a swirl of emotions was going through the young girl's mind, without thinking, she got behind the huntsman and thrusted her blade into his back. Without any resistance, she laid the body down onto the ground and ran towards Roman.

This caught the red-head by surprise with a sudden hug, "Hey kiddo, long time no see?"

She looked up to look at his face and knew that this wasn't a dream, she smiled and nodded happily, not wanting to think of anything else.

Coming back into reality, Roman placed a hand over her head, "Come on, we have to see what Cinder has planned." With Neo complying fully, they continued to walk to the CCT, what they didn't know Ruby was having a fight for her life battle going on.

* * *

"Pyrrha please snap out of this!" Jaune said swinging his sword at her, only with her blocking his attacks like she could predict his movement. She didn't say anything, she only stared into his eyes, wondering why she was feeling this way.

"…Who…are…you…?" The white husk of the one teammate he trusted said, he eyes were still glowing green, with the sword caught by her shield, she spun her shield to knock the sword out of his hand. She attacked with her weapon, with Jaune reacting with his shield.

With each attack felt like lead hitting him, 'How is she this tough?'

Her next attack brought the shield up from the boy and she knocked it off of his arm. Defenseless, she decided to lift her weapon and thrusted it into him, hopefully then will she be able to find out why she was feeling this way.

Luckily Jaune didn't want to give up, with no options left, he pulled into his backpack and pulled out Pyrrha's old shield and used it to defend himself.

Pyrrha looked onto the shield used and a rush of memories flooded into her head, causing much pain for her. Grabbing her head, she screamed out, not wanting to feel this pain. She stumbled away from him, trying to make the pain stop.

Looking behind her, Jaune noticed the Grimm were being destroyed by someone, focusing in… he seen a male with a green shirt firing onto the Grimm and an orange haired girl with a large hammer, "Ren, Nora!"

They both looked over and knew they had to get her away, so Nora ran over and hit her with her weapon. With this impact, she crashed into the wall, causing a crater to form around her.

"Wait… Pyrrha?" Nora said, not believing the situation around them…

"How is this possible?" Ren didn't stop attacking the nearby Grimm, luckily the numbers were going down, enough for the military forces to subdue the rest.

"I don't know, she was appearing with Cinder's forces, aiding them" Jaune looked at the shield Pyrrha once used, but he put it onto his back and grabbed his own weapons instead, deciding on what to do, he put the shield back into its compressed form and placed it back onto his jeans. Looking at his sword, he knew he had to face her, "Guys, I'll be fighting Pyrrha alone."

Though both of them knew he wasn't strong enough to face another person like Pyrrha, "Are you sure Jaune?"

Nodding, he gripped both of his hands onto the handle of the blade, "Yes, just keeps the Grimm busy and no one else can join this battle."

Both nodded and did what he said, but they wondered how is he going to accomplish this?

* * *

"HAH" Enya said thrusting his blades into a female member of HELP, "Why are you helping them Eminence?"

Eminence had her short blades block both of his blades, "Because brother, you betrayed us by siding with Cinder, and its Esther now," she slightly adjusted her blade and shot him in the face with an ice shot.

He backed up a few steps with a part of face cold to touch, "Ok, Esther I see how this is, you betray your only family with these people who can't help themselves," he used his semblance to heat his hand up and touched his face, "you see, they will overwork themselves until the people don't need you anymore and throw you away!"

Across from them both Ciel and Sophia had to fight two of their foes, Serilda and Athanasia of SWAG.

"What's wrong Ciel, can't follow a target you can't see?" Serilda spun around, using her semblance of invisibility, she crept over and swung her blade onto his back, luckily he moved when she slipped on some ice he generated, "cheap tricks…"

Spinning his guns, he fired over to the guy who causes Sophia so much trouble, Athanasia 'Aero' Aimes, "Takes this cheater…"

Sophia swung her mace and made contact to Aero's arm, knocking him back so she could continue hitting for all of the pain he caused back in the past, the constant abuse he delivers on her for nothing and for him to consistently cheat on her with other women when they were dating.

With no possible way out, Aero decide to do something stupid, he had his robotic arm turn into its weapon form of a cannon and fired it between them, exploding on the ground. Causing both knocked back by the blast, both very hurt, but able to stand up.

Ciel looked over to see Sophia hurt, "SOPHIA," he wanted to help but Serilda was still around. He was already stabbed a few times, but he could manage, he hopes she could get back up before he could.

* * *

Jaune stood there in front of his teammate/tutor/friend, remembering all the fun times they had together, he didn't want her to suffer like this. He had to find a way to defeat her first and a way to reverse this if it's possible. He thought back to the day where his aura was first awakened, remembering the feeling he had when Pyrrha used her aura to awaken his.

Clutching his sword tightly, he calmed himself and did a mini form of meditation to hopefully awaken it, he held his sword close to him, closing his eyes and cleared his mind.

Pyrrha watched her opponent for any movement and it looks like he was surrendering, so with no options, she jumped up into the air towards the blonde warrior.

Ren watched what was going on and wanted to get him out of the way, "Jaune!"

Nora stopped attacking the Grimm to see what Ren saw but this scared the girl, "JAUNE, GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

Jaune didn't do what they were yelling at him, he kept his composure and took in a deep breath, imagining Pyrrha as she once was, "…Pyrrha…"

With each passing second the Grimm version of the girl they once knew was getting closer and closer, with a spear aimed at his chest.

He felt a surge from within, wanting to come out, he knew that this was something important. He waited for the exact moment to strike and when the moment was she was too close, he swung his blade at her weapon. His weapon was covered in a bright light to blind anyone close to it, "ARRRGHHH!"

-SNAP-

"JAUNE" both Jaune and Nora screamed out, hoping nothing horrible happened to him.

Jaune looked up to see that he was still alive, but to see Grimm Pyrrha's weapon destroyed, wondering what happened he looked down onto his blade and it surprised him, a glowing energy was covering the weapon. The length of the blade was extended just enough to destroy the spear but not Pyrrha.

The Grimm person backed up from him in hopes to not get hit, but deep down she felt happy to see this. She raised her weaponless hand and pointed towards the boy in front of her.

Jaune watched as Grimm were charging at him, but with his new power, he swung his blade at the oncoming Ursa and Beowolves, killing them with each swing. He pulled out his shield for a few short calls where the claws almost hit him.

Pyrrha watched him kill each Grimm with ease now, her expression wasn't that of nothing but a small smile formed. Her eyes were getting watery; she couldn't explain but she felt really happy for something.

With the last Grimm killed, Jaune, Nora and Ren looked over to see their teammate, a Grimm version of her.

Jaune slowly walked over to her, "Pyrrha…"

She looked at her friends but looked away, her memories were coming back but she realized what she was, "…Don't…"

"Why?"

She looked at her hands, the clothes she was wearing was the same armor she wore for battle but it shows multiple signs of battle damage on it, metal armor was heavily damaged with deep cuts in certain areas and her skin was white as snow, "…Don't you… see what…I am…?"

"Yes, but I'm sure we can help you. We're your friends, we don't want anything bad happen to you" Jaune gotten closer to her and raised his hand, holding her shield, closer to her, "you can trust us."

She seen how he and the other two all had happy expressions on their faces, yet she was unsure with everything around her, she grabbed her old shield and examined how it was undamaged.

"I polished it the way you use to after every mission"

"…Thank…you…" Pyrrha said with tears starting to flow down, but she knew she couldn't be with them anymore, "…but…I…can't…"

"Why-" Jaune was punched in the gut, knocking him down.

"Jaune" Nora tried to subdue Pyrrha but she knocked both Nora and Ren onto the ground. Looking at her shield, she knew that this is all she needs. Without hesitating, she ran out of the building and to some unknown destination.

Jaune watched Pyrrha as she was leaving, he had his hand up to her direction, "Why…Pyrrha?"

* * *

-BANG-BANG-

Ruby fired her sniper rifle at the both of the but they were illusions again. She looked around until she a footstep behind her and she seen a kick coming to her face, with nothing else she took the hit. Knocking her away from her rifle, she was battered in wounds from the two. She tried to get back up but Mercury stepped on her back, stopping her.

"Why don't you give up, don't you see that we won" Mercury said while he added pressure with his foot, hurting the girl.

"Mercury, that's enough that's all she ordered us to do is stop her not kill her" Emerald didn't want the satisfying feeling of killing someone, though she found Ruby annoying.

"Yeah, yeah" Mercury lifted his foot off of her, but he swung with his hardest onto her gut, making her gasp for air, "the next time you interfere with our plans, I won't stop there."

With no options, she grabbed onto his boot. Mercury smiled, still sees hope in her, he picked her up by the neck and punched her a few times. He was happy with himself to see how he broke some her bones doing that.

With her vision fading, she could see two more people walking towards them, 'Teammates?'

"Neo, welcome back and Roman?" Emerald said shocked.

"Surprised to see me?" Roman said but he looked over to see Ruby on the ground, "Well…what do we have here, Little Red Little Red, it looks like this is it for you."

Neo watched as a large Beowulf was charging in towards them, they didn't care about it, instead it was charged past them and towards Ruby on the ground. Before it could kill her, Neo stabbed it in the head, killing the beast.

"Not taking the easy path" Roman commented, "if she comes after you guys again, We'll take care of her."

Both Mercury and Emerald already walked away, "We don't care, just come with us, Cinder wants to talk with you Roman."

Roman knew he might not like it, "Oh Joy…"

Ruby felt defeated, she couldn't get past her bodyguards and never faced the person she wanted to face against. She got back up and rested herself on a nearby wall, closing her eyes in defeat.

"RUBY"

She looked over to see a familiar face but she collapsed from being beaten up from those 2.

"I got you Ruby"

* * *

With his hands occupied, Ciel watched Aero get back on his feet, ready for battle again.

"Damn, never doing that again." He looked over to see his girlfriend on the ground, "Hello."

"NO" Ciel tried his best to combat against Serilda but she was too tricky to fight alone, he looked over to see his friends getting hurt from their old friends. He knew that they couldn't win from the start, but to buy Ruby and her friends enough time without these 8.

Enya knocked down his sister, "I won this time sister." He left her on the ground, knowing that he would fight someone else and sees Ciel, "You…"

Serilda backed off when Enya entered the battle, she looked over to see Aero kicking her little sister around. Sighing she walked over to see Sophia trying to get him off. He pulled out a knife in hopes to kill her for good.

She raised one leg over and kicked him, "Move it," she looked down and grabbed the knife. "You look horrible sis." Athanasia glared at her and walked away, in hopes someone else was still up.

Sophia simply glared at her for what she did, "Why did you do this Scarlet?"

Serilda simply smiled and grabbed her sister by the throat with her free hand and moved closely to her ear, "Because he asked me to…"

Sophia froze and spoke softly, "Really, why?"

She didn't want the others around her (In due time sister, but you would have to trust me on this one, I love Silver, you must tell Ruby about our plans), she pulled out a small chip and slipped it into her pocket. She looked at the knife Athanasia wanted to use and thrusted it into Sophia's stomach.

"AAAAHHHH" Serilda let go of her sister with the blade still inside, blood was spilling out of the wound.

Serilda looked around to see the hatred of the others around her, her old friends…

* * *

 **A/N: And done, wow in only a few days for the longest chapter, I'm proud of this one. The main inspiration for Pyrrha would be the Captain America movies, where a teammate was believed to be dead but comes back as the villain with little recollection of who they once were. With added drama, I put in how Mercury beat the crap out of our hero, to show that even the main cast have a chance of being beaten to a pulp.**


	11. Hidden Meanings of Deception

_**Light of Hope Chapter 11 'Hidden Meanings of Deception'**_

 _ **A/N:**_ **And this is the last chapter for this mini-series. This was mainly made because of the many theories and speculations in hopes of what Volume 4 would bring in. The OCs were used for a kind of fill in, since I didn't want main or recurring cast to go through what they went through.**

 **Disclaimer, RWBY and everything related in here belongs to Roosterteeth and the only thing I had were the OCs, enjoy!**

* * *

Ciel was fighting Enya, a friend who tricked him into injecting Dust as a way to get a high. With each hit, they were finding a way to defeat each other until they heard a shriek from one of their comrades. Ciel looked over to see Serilda walk away from Sophia, with a knife in her stomach, she went through a lot and now they tried to kill her.

He looked over to Enya with hatred in his heart, charging in without saying anything, Enya noticed he was much different. He knocked both of his opponents arms away and grabbed him by the throat and using his semblance, he froze Enya in place and ran towards Serilda. She simply didn't attack him but walked away from her, not wanting to fight. Seeing the situation, he ran past her and towards his friend.

"Sophia, Sophia" he nudged her until she stirred back awake, "Oh good…"

"…Serilda…" She tried to speak but the wound was getting worse.

"Don't speak" he pulled out his medical supplies he always kept and checked on the wound, with some blood coming out of the wound. He slowed the blood flow by placing some bandages around it but he had to get out of the area and to a hospital.

He looked back to see many of their teammates were still fighting for their lives, despite the brutality the Sins fight, the Virtues were keeping up with defending themselves.

He was checking around the area for a way to escape but felt Sophia grab onto his hand, looking down he seen that she was pointing towards something in the sky, he looked the same way she did. There was a ship flying over them, an Atlesian ship with the side doors open revealing 4 people inside, 2 blondes, one male one female, a black haired Faunus and a white haired person.

Jumping out of the ship and in between the battle around them, the blonde male checked the area around. From the info he received from Qrow, he knew half were Ruby's friends. Pulling out his weapons, 2 identical gauntlets like the ones Yang used but it was extended up to his elbows.

He looked back to the three girls that were with him, "Go find Ruby, I'll handle these ones" he slammed his fists together.

"Hang on dad, I'll help you with this one" Yang smirked while she was still adjusting her new robotic arm, thanks to what Weiss did. Her new arm wielded her weapon of choice, one of the dual set of shotgun gauntlets called the 'Ember Celica.'

With her short hair, she sorts of missed it, she knew she could re-grow it, though that's gonna take a while. Her outfit didn't resemble her old outfit and instead she was still wearing a yellow tank top with dark grey pants with a small dark colored leather jacket with the right arm cut off.

"Hmph, bunch of degenerates" The heiress simply said as she aimed her rapier Myrtenaster and made some ice appear her opponents. Her outfit closely resembles the one she use to wear but the colors were adjusted with most of it being dark blue with white fading towards the bottom of her combat skirt and jacket. With some training from Winter, she fired ice chunks with great speed.

Blake didn't say anything towards the enemies, instead pulled out her Gumbo Shroud and ran up to green haired girl as she was trying to kill her opponent on the ground. With Blake's speed, she blocked the attack and using her semblance, she appeared behind the girl and knocked her back. She still wore her old outfit, with tears around the outfit but Weiss gave her a long white jacket with the tail section going down close to the ground.

Griffon got back to her feet, glaring at the Faunus, "Filthy slave…"

* * *

"Guys check this area out" Sun was checking the area around, making sure no more Grimm were still alive.

Neptune had his gun out, ready to fire if any Grimm were around the corner. He walked over to where the creatures were coming out from when the incident occurred, "Guys I'm checking the building, so far no Grimm."

Checking around, he turned on a flashlight to see that nothing was moving, dead guards and claw marks everywhere, "Man, what happened in here?"

Over in the distance, he heard some clanking and clashes with what sounds like swords. Getting closer to the sounds, he seen 3 people attacking 2 large Beowolves. Having a better look, he seen that it was Jaune, Nora and Ren attacking 2 Alphas, "Oh crap, Sun, everyone, we have 2 Alphas attacking JNPR, requesting assistance immediately!"

"We're on our way!" Sun and the rest of the team said, rushing over.

Aiming his weapon, he fired at one Alpha in hopes to get its attention.

Jaune was blocking its attack until he seen a blue bolt hit the Grimm in the face, only with the Grimm looking at the person who fired it. With an opening, Jaune thrusted the sword into the body of the creature, making it jump back in pain.

Nora swung her hammer at the head of the creature, knocking it into the other, "Man these guys are tough!"

Neptune ran over to see if they were ok, "You guys fine?"

The three nodded but Neptune seen how tired they were from battling Grimm, "We just need to wait until the rest of my team arrives."

Hearing the growls of the 2, the Beowolves charged back, wanting to kill them.

* * *

"Hey I got you kid" Qrow said, picking up his niece. He was mad to see how she was reckless enough to charge in without a plan and ended up like this.

Ruby slowly opened her eyes in disbelief with what just happened, "…Uncle Qrow…"

He placed a finger over her mouth, motioning her to stop, "You don't have to worry about your mission, its over."

She wanted to continue where she left off but her body wasn't responding right now, so reluctantly she closed her eyes and drifted asleep. Smiling to himself, he was surprised to hear his scroll was buzzing, groaning, "It must be Tai or Glynda again…"

Adjusting his arm, he pulled out his Scroll to see what's going on, but there was only a message from a person called 'Pawn' and the message said, 'Cinder headed to Dragon Isle, to meet with someone there.' Grunting, he knew something was up, "The Dragon Isle, I better tell Tai about this."

* * *

Neptune was having trouble with this Alpha, it was much tougher than the ones he was use to fighting, "Guys any second now!"

"Neptune move!" a voice said from behind him, already knowing who said it, he dashed to the right, missing the attack from the Alpha. The Grimm didn't see the monkey Faunus coming behind the male student, using his nun chucks, he shot multiple rounds into the head of the Grimm, causing a crack to form around the skull.

Neptune looked at the head, knowing that it was weakened, he switched his weapon into a naginata, jumped on Sun's shoulder and leap towards the alpha, thrusting the blade into its head, hearing the beast release its final roar.

Looking over to Ren and Nora, both Scarlett and Sage were keeping it away from the injured two. Scarlett fired the cable to hang onto the neck of the creature, with Sage slamming his blade onto the head of the creature, killing it instantly.

"Phew, nice timing guys, I didn't think there was way to defeat them."

"Hey Jaune, you good?" Sun knelt down and nudged the young blonde kid, Jaune was sore but he was good, "Yeah, I good but… Pyrrha!" He was sitting upright but felt sore and gripped his stomach from where the Alpha stepped on him.

"Take it easy" Sun tried to calm the boy but didn't believe what he just said, "did you just say Pyrrha?"

"She's still alive" Ren said, being helped by Scarlett with standing right now, "she's currently helping Cinder's group."

"How is she alive, didn't that Huntsman tell us what happened?" Sun remembered seeing Ruby's uncle telling the students what happened when he came back carrying her back with Weiss.

"We don't know" Jaune said while he was being helped by Sun, "but she's much different now."

"How so?"

Shaking his head, Jaune remembered everything clearly, "I'll explain it to everyone, we should head back."

Nodding, Sun looked back to see Jaune's team was being helped by his team. They walked out of the building to see a ship carrying someone they seen before, waving it over, they seen it land in front of them.

"Hey, I remember you" Sun said to the older man in the ship with a girl sitting down on one of the seats.

"Aren't you one of Haven's students?" Qrow asked the students, he seen how they helped his nieces protect Beacon, though it wasn't their kingdom.

"Yeah" he looked over to see the girl and realized who it was, "Ruby? What happened to you?"

Ruby tried to smile but with her injuries, she simply looked over to Sun and his team bringing in JNPR, "Hey Sun, good to see you."

"Pilot bring us over to the safe zone" Qrow told the pilots, with both nodding. The doors closed with the students and huntsman waiting for something to happen.

"So how was the Grimm problem, we didn't see much when you picked us up?" Scarlett said in different accent, a little different to everyone else.

"The Grimm were eliminated but the Atlesian and huntsman forces are currently making sure everything is all safe before announcing it" the huntsman said blankly.

Sun looked out of the ship to see some Grimm still climbing the buildings but had Huntsmen/Huntresses firing their weapons onto the beasts, killing them easily. Feeling relieved, he laid back and rested until they reached the safe area.

* * *

"We're here" Pilots were moving the airship over the hospital, with the ports above already taken up by other ships. The remaining ships landed outside in the parking lot, with many huntsman and Atlesian forces keeping patrol outside. Many students taken the opportunity to aid the doctors with bringing in patients and aiding their armed forces.

Both Ren and Nora looked over with the doors opening, to see that the area was clear. Some of the Virtues were aiding the citizens inside their home and helping anyone with their wounds, "How was this possible?"

With the ship making it's landing, the students walked out of the ship. They were already greeted by their friends from Beacon, Weiss, Blake and Yang.

"It's great to see you guys again" Yang said hugging onto Sage.

"Hey Yang, you have a new arm?" Ruby asked, while she was being carried by Qrow.

"Ruby what happened?" Yang ran over to her little sister with Weiss and Blake behind her, wanting to know who did this to her.

"I was attacked by Emerald and Mercury, they prevented me from confronting Cinder" Qrow cleaned up the blood around her, but the bruises and deep cuts were all over her face.

During with anger, Yang's eyes turned red, "Oh, when I see Mercury again I'm gonna-"

Weiss placed an arm in front of the blonde stopping her, "Right now I'm just glad to see that you're all right ruby."

"We need to take these guys in right now" Qrow said, with SSSN bringing in JNPR, right now, Qrow was thinking about that message he received from his source.

* * *

After placing Ruby and JNPR in the hands of doctors, he walked over to into an empty conference room, void of anyone being in here for a while, a good place to chat with Glynda.

"Qrow"

Qrow looked behind him to see his partner, "Tai"

"You don't need to apologize right now, I already know the situation from asking some of her friends, she went out to fight her by herself but why do you need to talk behind closed doors."

Hearing a beep on Tai's scroll, an image of Glynda appeared in a hologram form, "Hello Qrow, what did you find?"

Pulling out his scroll, "I got a message from one of our spies, she got away. Moving everything to another area that we didn't expect to see anytime soon, the Dragon Isle."

Tai checked the message and seen that the Dragon Isle was the main subject, "Why would they be going there, that area was destroyed by the Great War, the main battleground fought for years?"

"Yes, the area is currently overrun by the largest amount of Grimm, but there's something there not adding up… Why would a maiden be moving to the area, to get away from authorities or continuing her plan?" Qrow walked around, wondering, without Oz there, they don't know where to head out to.

"What about that girl we thought was killed, Pyrrha?" Tai remembered hearing about this, "She suddenly comes back but with the power to control Grimm, how could this be?"

Knowing that he has no options left, "I'll go check the Isle again."

"You sure?"

"We don't have an option, besides Oz probably want this done." He walked out of the room and to his next destination.

* * *

"Ugh…" Ruby slightly stirred away. Lifting her eyes open, she looked around to see a white room, remembering what happened, she looked around, "What happened to everyone!"

"Oh Ruby!" Ruby felt someone went over and gave a crushing hug, surprised who it was, she looked over to see her sister, "Yang, what are you doing here?"

"We came with dad to help you break out" Yang was just thrilled to see her sister safe.

"We?" She looked behind her and seen both Blake and Weiss sitting in their chairs, waving at the young leader, "Ohhhhh."

"I swear, Mercury is gonna get it " Yang said in an angry manner but Ruby have some questions of her own.

"Uh, what did I miss?" She looked at how the team got back together, seeing Yang back but a new arm?

"Right I forgot to mention, I found a way for Yang to return to battle. The same person who created Penny was the one who made this model for Yang, I came back to get her and Blake was there, asking for forgiveness."

"Wow, I was gone for a while and this happens" Ruby happily said while she was thinking, then she remembered what happened to her new friends, "what happened to team CPAS and HELP?"

Yang and the others looked at each other but knew who she was talking about, "Some are in the hospital right now, along with the rest of the JNPR."

Feeling a heavy feeling of regret aside, she felt relieve, "Thank goodness…"

"Hey Ruby, Jaune told us that his team and you saw Pyrrha, was that right?" Blake asked, wanting to make sure this was right.

Ruby lost her smiled and had an empty expression, "Yeah, she was helping Cinder and her forces."

"What!" Yang busted, "Why would she do that?"

"Because she didn't have a choice…" Ruby said clutching her sheets, "she looked much different from the last time we seen each other, she resembled a Grimm more than herself."

"Yeah…" hearing his voice, they looked over to see Jaune, Nora and Ren entering the room, "She's different now, her skin was white as snow and she could control the Grimm around her."

The heiress got up from her chair, "What, that's impossible."

Jaune looked at her, not with love/desire but with a blank expression, "She held her arm up to stop the Grimm from attacking or to attack someone specifically."

"Where did she go?" Blake wondered how a person could control Grimm.

"She knocked us down and ran away, and so far no leads" Ren said, he checked the entire area after the incident ended, but left empty handed and no leads.

"Yeah, there's no explanation from any sources" Qrow said behind the group.

"Hey Uncle what's up?" Ruby said, looking at her uncle, knowing he has something planned.

"Nothing kiddo, but I have to leave soon, to someplace pip-squeaks like you kids shouldn't go to right now." Qrow patted Ruby's head like usually would to cheer her up, but seeing she wasn't smiling, he looked at everyone else in the room, "So far Cinder and her forces disappeared once again. We do have some leads but it's a place no young huntsmen and huntresses could dream to enter."

"Really where?" Ruby wanted to find Cinder by any means.

Sadly, Qrow shook his head, "I'm sorry kid, but Tai would kill me if I brought you guys with me."

-Knock-knock-

The group looked over to see a male waiting outside of the room, "Is it ok to enter?"

Ruby remembered who it was, "Hey Ciel, how did the Virtues hold?"

Walking in, Ciel was fine, cuts and bruises but nothing severe, "Everyone would be surviving today, though Sophia had suffered a bad stab wound form Serilda. She requests an audience with you soon, for something important."

Qrow wondered what she may have planned, he looked over to see Ruby trying to get up, "I wonder what she wants." She was sore but she still tried to get up. Yang held onto her, aiding every step. Getting back her muscles, Ruby could walk halfway to the room.

Opening the doorway, she entered to see Sophia resting with multiple medical equipment around her. Walking up to her, she was wondering of what happened to her, the bedsheets were covering much of her body, so the wound was probably obstructed.

Opening her eyes, she looked over towards Ruby, "Hey Ruby, its good to see you again."

"Hello, you said that you wanted to talk to me about something?" Ruby asked with Yang and Ciel behind her. Qrow followed along, but stayed close to the door, making sure to catch some details if it was important.

"Yes, I wanted to tell you that the Sins were once good people, but the greed for power got the better of them. Both my boyfriend Athanasia and sister Serilda were consumed when they met Cinder and seen her plans. My father was also affected by the power to where he believed he could control this kingdom by killing Cinder, by sending all of us onto a suicide mission," she pulled something out of her pocket, "they wanted the rest of us to join their ranks as well, but with our circumstances, we refused. Now enemies, both PLGE and SWAG announced their war with us, and we went into countless times of conflict, only the facility to brake us up."

"Why are you telling me this?" Ruby was confused to why Sophia told her about her past.

Sophia motioned Ruby to come closer, "Because our comrades today would become our enemies' tomorrow, so count your blessings." She raised her arms to hug Ruby and place the device into her outfit, "Watch out who you make friends with, I hope you don't go through with what we went through." She smiled as she laid down, happily going back to sleep.

Ruby turned around to walk towards the exit, "Hey Ruby what was that about?" She looked at her sister and smiled, "To watch out who I make friends with."

Ciel walked towards Sophia and sat on one of the chairs, "Don't wait for me, I'll be here for a while."

Ruby waved at him, "Ok, bye."

Qrow walked away from the room, he watched the girl place something with Ruby, 'What was that? Intel?'

Ruby and Yang walked past their uncle, wondering what their next move was. Once they entered the room with their friends, the young huntress looked at the chip and inserted it into her Scroll, and out came messages and images of an old battleground called the 'Dragon Isle.'

She and the rest of the gang looked at each other and knew that this was their next destination, though Qrow was annoyed at how he could've snatched this from his niece.

* * *

Over in some weird destination…

"Ma'am we've arrived" a pilot said when the ship made touchdown onto the crimson ground.

With Cinder exiting the ship, Emerald, Mercury, Neo and Roman walked out behind her, walking towards a person.

Cinder slightly bowed in the presence of this person, "Cinder, was the mission a success?"

"Yes, everything went according to plan, madam Salem."

The person turned around, a white skinned dark eyed person looked at them and smiled, "Excellent, then we'll show the world to once again fear the powers of Grimm." She walked ahead of the group, walking past large purple dust crystals.

Roman was the last to follow, examining the crystals, "Wow, gravity crystals, something you don't see every day. No wonder why the war occurred here, these materials catch a good price." He felt someone tugging at his coat, looking he seen his partner, "Ok Neo I'm coming."

Looking over the horizon, he seen a lot of crystals but Grimm were gathering in unimaginable numbers. He looked up to see giant Nevermores and Griffons, many normal but some more powerful.

"How did this many Grimm go unnoticed?" He asked the group, since this was his first time here.

"Thanks to the Great War, many of the kingdom's Grimm Dragons migrated here for the deep dark emotions resting in the hearts of the soldiers. Thanks to no one interfering, the Grimm grew in peace, and now ready for combat." Cinder explained, wanting to wage war using the Grimm.

"How soon will this plan be?" A Beowulf was growling behind Roman, wanting to eat him. He tried to defend himself but the Grimm stopped, "How in the-"

He looked over to see Salem had her hand up, "Don't worry about them, I could control them by my will alone." She raised her hands up, brining in a very large Dragon, much more menacing than the one frozen over Beacon.

"When the time comes, my minions and I will destroy those the Huntsmen protect, this is the beginning of the end. Only a matter of time now until we strike" she looked back at the group with her red eyes glowing brightly.

* * *

 **And this is the end of my first story for the RWBY fanbase. I spent a lot of time finding out the possibilities the series could bring in, but hearing the news of Volume 4 being a time skip, already this story was wrong. I cannot wait until Volume 4 drops on October 22.**

 _ **Thank you Monty, for everything…**_


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